While The Cats Away
by Sideos
Summary: Dib has the flu and therefore it falls to Gaz to save the earth from the alien menace, even if she really, really doesn't want too. However, she soon finds herself doing something even more unexpected. Making a friend. Will be ZAGR later.
1. A Quiet Day

_This story is an experiment, the last of a group of experiments in writing I've been doing lately. Should this experiment prove well, than expect even MORE stuff from me. Yes more.  
_

_Now, onto the story. This idea came about when reading fan fiction and reading ANOTHER bit where it announces 'ZIM IS TALLER AND DRESSES DIFFERENTLY NOW'. I thought '... at what point did he decide to do this?' _

_This story came about through me wanting to write that little transitional period. That, and combine it with a LEETLE bit of ZAGR/ZAGF.  
_

* * *

"DIB!" The young woman shouted from the bottom of the staircase. "DIB WHY ARE YOU NOT DOWN HERE GETTING READY FOR SKOOL?"

Gaz growled loudly, her fist curling around her school bag. She was thirteen years old, caught in that awkward place between being a girl and a woman, her body was already shooting up... or it would be if she hadn't already stopped at a five foot five.

Still, the goth hid most of her body in heavy clothes, right now she had black baggy pants, a hoody and underneath a shirt that read 'Dethklok' with the band logo upon it.

"Wait a minute." Dib's voice croaked from the upstairs... wait, croaked? She raised an eyebrow slowly as the figure of her fifteen year old brother appeared on the staircase, walking slowly down. His tall, skinny, lanky frame was hunched over, his eyes appearing sullen and his skin pale, even a little green.

He sneezed suddenly and wiped his arm on his trench coat sleeve, ew. "I'm just feeling a little under the weather. But I'm fine."

"... Dib you're sick," Gaz replied quickly and with a frown, taking an involuntary step back, "Don't you dare come near me and infect me with whatever stupid virus you have."

"I'm not sick!" Dib complained from the top of the stairs, "I have to keep the world safe from Zim! I can't get sick!" He sneezed again and wiped his nose. "Uuugh, okay, maybe a little sick, but I can still go to school!"

Gaz frowned deeply. "If you take one step down those stairs I will punch you in your soul." She turned and began storming towards the door, "Email the skool, tell them you're ill, go back to bed."

"Wow Gaz, you care about me so much!" Dib grinned from the top of the staircase, "I never knew!"

Gaz paused before turning around and glaring at him with her deep amber eyes, "I'm only telling you this because A, you'd kill yourself trying to beat Zim if I didn't and B, because you're too stupid to do it yourself."

"... right." Dib blinked and sneezed loudly again before holding out a hand to Gaz, "WAIT! Gaz promise me you'll keep me updated on all of Zim's activities!"

"... why the hell would I want to do that?" The goth girl questioned, her hand no one the handle of the front door.

"Because the fate of the world is," He sneezed loudly and sniffled before continuing, "... at stake."

"... right, okay, whatever," She waved a hand in dismissal as she walked out the door, "Go to bed, Dib."

She scowled as she walked down the path to their house. If he had made her late to the bus she would make sure he spent a week in the hospital instead of just his room. Spy on Zim for him, BAH, like she would ever bother doing such a stupid thing, she had better things to do than watch that stupid irken moron try and pretend to be normal all day.

Like he was anything but normal.

She spent the rest of the day on her own, as usual. She didn't really have any friends, but she never really considered herself someone who needed friends. She was fine playing games on her own, or rather, leaching off the hi-skool internet and playing online.

However, she had only just gotten to the first recess of the day when a familiar shadow fell across her.

"Gaz-beast!" She growled and looked up at the annoying face of Zim as he stood... next to her. How many years had it been since he arrived? And he still looked exactly the same, it would almost be worrying if it wasn't so hilarious to see him try and act normal around everyone else who towered over him.

"What is it Zim?" She replied, not even looking up at him, she was too busy pwning noobs online.

"I demand to know why your brother-spawn is not with you today." He crossed his arms and frowned at her, "What is he up too? What is he planning? Tell Zim!"

"He's sick." She replied before grinning slightly, awesome, another headshot, "He's taking time off skool to get better."

"Sick?" Zim questioned before grinning and laughing... right into Gaz's ear. "BWAHAHA! You patheeetic humans have yet to exterminate all viruses from this planet? I laugh at your sick prone bellies!"

Gaz growled and looked up, the round on the game being over, she was at the top of the scoreboard of course. "He'll be off for a week, now get lost before I make you get lost."

"FINALLY!" He continued loudly, ignoring Gaz's statement, "A week where I can doom the whole earth with no one to stop me! BWAHAHA!"

"Zim. Go. Away." Gaz growled out, much louder than before. She was missing valuable game time here!

Zim didn't go away. "I will spend this week unleashing pain upon all who go before me! Pain and doom and... and..." He slowed down before scratching his head, that energetic viciousness vanishing from his voice, "I dunno. Horribleness I guess."

"How about you go _do_ that then?" Gaz hissed, shoving him away.

The irken cackled in joy before storming off, muttering something about weasels and lasers. Like Gaz cared, he'd probably end up shooting himself in the foot anyway. Ugh, stupid alien. Stupid Dib being ill and not distracting him. Why was everything so damn stupid?

It was again later that day, this time at lunch, that Gaz got her second chance of the day to play online. Plus she could eat her food and play in peace, a rare occurrence for her considering how often Dib or Zim would distract her from her game. She was literally logging into another Q3 Online match when an all too familiar figure sat down next her.

"Hello Gaz-beast," Zim announced himself again, however this time the cackle had completely vanished from his voice. In fact, he seemed... bored.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone?" Gaz hissed, grabbing a sandwich from her bag whilst still playing the game, multitasking was something she was good at after all.

"I am bored, human." Zim mumbled, leaning forward onto the table and propping himself up on his arms. "I never thought I'd say this but Zim is bored without the Dib-stink around to fight."

"... really?" Gaz did feel a spark of interest rise up in her, but her sarcasm kept it from being discovered in her voice. "How fascinating. Now go away."

"Without the challenge, even if it is an easy challenge, of kicking your stupid brother-spawn's head in I can't think of anything to do," He continued moaning, either missing or just ignoring Gaz's statement.

"It's been half a friggin day," Gaz replied with a frown, still looking to her game, "How can you be bored after half a day?"

"Do not question the mind of the mighty ZIM!" Zim cried out, drawing a few looks but nothing that wasn't unusual. People were used to Zim's shouting and screaming, it was part of the Zim-Dib package of weirdness in hi-skool.

Gaz shrugged. "Whatever."

There was a moment of silence between them as Gaz played her game and took another bite of her sandwich, something which the tiny invader watched carefully. Suddenly, he seemed to brighten up for a moment, turning to lock his eyes on Gaz, "You're good at fighting, aren't you Gaz?"

The teen shrugged again, continuing to ignore the irken.

"Good enough!" The small green boy shouted before leaping up onto his seat and pointing at the teenager, "I demand that while Dib-stink is out of commission, you fill his horrible, stinky, big headed place!"

Gaz paused her game, a stupid move to make in an online game but she could lose a round just to drill this point into Zim's head. She turned to look at him, her amber eyes blazing with anger. "Listen here Zim. I'm going to say this once. Go. Away. I am not fighting you, I am not watching you for my stupid brother, I am not having any part of this pointless little game you play together. Leave me the hell ALONE."

The irken blinked at this reply before grinning evilly. "How about this. If you don't agree to try and pathetically stop me from ruling your horrible rock of a world, I will make sure that you never, ever play that game of yours."

"... you wouldn't dare touch my game," Gaz replied with an evil look to match, "And if you do, I'll-"

"Beat me up? That sounds like fighting to me," Zim laughed before crossing his arms, "See? I win either way. You'll fight me, little Gaz-beast, you have no choice in the matter."

Gaz really couldn't believe it, he... had a damn good point. That tiny little moron had trapped her into kicking his ass, something she thought no one ever wanted to do. She narrowed her eyes at the irken and hissed, "Fine. Tomorrow I'll kick your goddamn ass, but I swear, if you don't go right now I will _rip your head off_."

"The deal is struck!" He grinned, leaping off the seat and storming off, screaming, "VICTORY FOR ZIM!"

The teenager growled at this before looking back to her game. She didn't even want to play anymore, she was just so... UGH. She hated being outsmarted! Especially by that tiny little moron! But fine, if he wanted a fight, she would bring the pain like no one had ever brought pain before. He would forever regret this week!

* * *

_Didja like that? Huh? Huh? Huh? _

_REFERENCES! 1: Dethklok! Anyone who doesn't know about Dethklok needs to go and GET EDUCATED ON THE AWESOME OF DETHKLOK. 2: Sick Prone Bellies. This is something JV once said about fan fiction. What a dick.  
_

_Depending on what kind of feedback I get, I'll make it more ZAGRish or more ZAGFish. Yes you dear readers have the option to change the outcome of this story! VOTE WITH YOUR WORDS. _

_Things you liked? Didn't like? Suggestions, errors, or just wanna tell me I suck? GO AHEAD GO, TELL.  
_


	2. Pandora's Box

_This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction. _

_Seriously guys, the initial response for this was INCREDIBLE. I've never had so many reviews on a first chapter before. The theory was proven beyond expectations and the experiment a complete success! _

_Now like any other good scientist... writer... thing, I shall build on this success! This chapter is a little longer than usual, again, an experiment to see if you guys like longer or shorter chapters. I'd like to thank ma new bros UpsidePickle and It Was All A Puzzle for their brotastic messages and suggestions, as anyone else who sent me messages and reviews for the last chapter! As for all you guys voting, ZAGR won by miles, THUS THIS IS NOW A ZAGR STORY. _

_Anyway, this has gone on long enough. TIME FOR READING. _

* * *

The sunlight woke Gaz up before her alarm clock did. Ugh, she hated it when the sun woke her up, besides, she was sure she'd kept her blinds drawn all night. She was sure she'd kept her blinds drawn she she'd got the damn things... weird. But she was too tired to look into it, rather, she hauled herself out of bed and began her usual daily routine.

She wasn't one of those girls who preened over her looks, but that didn't mean she wanted to look ugly. Gaz enjoyed her gothic style, it was part of what made her Gaz, thus she was motivated to make sure that her skin was white and her eye-liner heavy and black. If she looked dark and vicious, she felt dark and vicious and thus she could face this crappy world with confidence.

When she had finished getting ready, she wandered back into her room, now shoving her books and homework into her bag, put most importantly, her Gameslave 2. Strangely it was not on the beside where she seemed to remember leaving it last night, but ontop of her school bag. She paused only for a second at this. Had someone touched it? She couldn't see any marks on it and it loaded up fine... huh. Maybe she was just being paranoid, besides, if anyone ever did touch her Gameslave... they would pay.

"DIB?" She called out as she walked down the stairs, her satchel bag slung over her shoulder. "Dib are you still sick?" The sound of sneezing from upstairs answered that one for her. "Great. I'm going to skool. Don't go in my room."

She stormed out the home and into the annoyingly sunny morning. Gaz hated the summer, it was too bright and hot and happy. She liked the autumn more, something about everything turning orange and brown and the world going into mourning made her smile.

Right now the sun cast an annoying glare on her screen and forced her to sit in the shade a lot. But, that wasn't going to put her off. Gaz had been preparing for this day. The day she finally took on the boss piggy demon in Vampire Piggy Hunter: Symphony of Squeals. She sat down, batteries on full, eyes locked on her Gameslave 2.

Nothing and no one was interrupting her titanic battle with the Boss Piggy Pigula. She had spent all morning recess building up her inventory, double checking she had all the best armour and weapons. She had heard from Iggins, that loud fat noob, that this boss was supposedly impossible to beat... well, she liked a challenge.

It was lunch-break, the perfect time to sit on the bench under the willow tree and play her game until her thumbs wore off. She fired up the game and began, walking right into the main room and, in a rare moment, grinning with vicious glee as she saw Pigula standing before her, taunting her character with questions like 'What is a man'?

That was until about halfway through her titanic battle when a shadow fell across the screen, causing her to pause quickly and look up with the fury of a thousand suns in her eyes.

"Gaz-stink! It is time for our epic battle!" the highly annoying voice of Zim cackled through the air, "Prepare yourself for imminent destruction at the mighty hands if ZIIIM!"

"... later," Gaz commented simply before looking back to her game. "Now go away before my patience wears thin."

Zim stood before her with a confused look on his face. Had she not promised him a battle? Why was she suddenly flaking out on him like this? He growled deeply. "We had a deal Gaz-beast, we will do battle! Now!"

"I said _later_," Gaz replied quickly, wishing she could reach out and throw him a across the damn school-yard, but she needed both hands to fight Pigula. "Go away."

Zim growled deeply, "I had your word, human! Bah, I knew it was stupidity to trust the honour of one of you stinking pig-apes." Zim's growl turned into a horrible and sly smirk however, "Good thing I didn't trust you anyway." He crossed his arms and proudly announced, "Gameslave! Deactivate!"

One second Gaz was about to slay the Pigula, the sword literally swinging down onto the beasts head and the next, it all went black. Gaz just looked at he screen, her own reflection staring back at her. She felt... Angry. A White hot rage instantly exploded inside of her, however, she managed to keep it barely in check long enough to ask, "What. Did. You. Do?"

Her whole body was shaking in raw anger, something that Zim foolishly misunderstood. "I see you shake in fear at he mighty powers of Zim!" He turned on his side and continued grinning, no noticing Gaz slowly standing up, "Last night I infiltrated your room and hacked your Gameslave, just in case you didn't know. Now it only responds to the commands of the MIGHTY ZIM!"

The irken thrust his fists up into the air in victory, "Now you have to fight me!"

There was a pause where Zim waited for Gaz to respond, however, when he got no immediate response he looked over to her... or rather, he turned and looked up at her. He suddenly noticed how she was quite a bit taller than he was. In the same moment he realised just how very intimidating that made her. Finally, he also noticed that there seemed to be some kind of raging inferno of fury in her eyes the likes of which he'd never seen in a human before.

She raised her fist and Zim suddenly realised, as he usually did in these situations, that maybe he should have thought his actions through a little more.

The fist hit his face before he could even react, sending the much smaller and lighter boy flying backwards. Pain exploded under his eye and he yelped, and yet, before he could even begin processing how to retaliate a hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him back, then, the wind was utterly knocked out of him as a knee hit his spoonch.

He couldn't breathe but yet another fist hit the other side of his face, he was kept only on his feet by the strong hand holding his shirt.

Zim found himself being dragged along as Gaz began striding forwards. He tried weakly to grab hold of the arm, to yank Gaz from him, but he couldn't, the strength had been utterly sapped out of him.

Inwardly he cursed himself, he was supposed to be a soldier, an irken elite, why was he getting his butt handed to him by some human _child_? He managed a scowl, even if it seriously pained him to do so and spat out, "Let me go!"

"No." Gaz growled, still dragging the boy behind her. Her voice was ice cold and without any kind of remorse.

Zim suddenly realised where she was going. There was a small water fountain on the playground, one with horrible almost brown water coming from it. His eyes widened in horror, not even his paste solution would last under that kind of pollution. "GAZ-STINK! NO!"

She didn't seem to listen, or perhaps she did and didn't care. When they got to the fountain Gaz lifted the irken up with a surprising ease. He was small and surprisingly light, she thought that he'd have more weight to him but it was like lifting a computer with one hand. Sure it was heavy, but doable.

She shoved his face down onto the bowl of the fountain and her finger rested dangerously on the button to sent water shooting out. Zim could only imagine it. That horrible brown sludge shooting into the air, curving and landing onto his face... right onto where Gaz had punched him.

"Gaz-human," He gasped trying to get free but finding his struggling in vain, "Gaz-human stop! I'll fix your Gameslave!"

"Not good enough," Gaz hissed, her amber eyes still blazing, "You brought this on yourself by provoking my wrath. I demand that you admit defeat."

"WHAT?" The very idea of defeat boiled Zim's blood. He would never bow down to some human! Especially not a relation of the Dib-stink! "NEVER!"

Gaz pressed the button, and instantly that horrible brownish water came spurting out of the fountain. There was second before it hit Zim's face, than, suddenly, he screamed. He screamed so loud that people began to stop and look. His skin sizzled against the water and he thrashed in Gaz's grip, but she did not let him go.

However, she did turn her eyes away and took her eyes from the irken, letting the water stop. She looked back to Zim, the fire in her eyes still blazing. "Zim, admit defeat and I will let you go."

"NEVER!" The irken screamed, still desperately trying to escape the clutches of Gaz.

However, he watched as he finger hovered over the button again and his eyes grew wide. "Wait! No! Don't!"

Zim's body was wrecked with pain. He could barely breath, his skin still sizzled and his face was bloody. This wasn't like his fights with Dib where they'd hurl insults at each other than wrestle. Sure he had been punched a few times, but Dib was so predictable. He never hit the face, always the body and he rarely kicked. He was always focused on disabling his opponent.

Gaz was... vicious, she went to cause maximum pain with the minimum of effort and it was brutally effective. He... he had to retreat, he couldn't take any more of this for much longer.

"Let me down," He replied, panting, his voice deadened with the quiet resolve of someone who knew they had lost.

Gaz dropped him and watched as he lay on the floor, panting and putting on hand to his face, feeling where the horrible water had touched him. The taller girl stood over him, her eyes no longer filled with anger. In fact, inside, she felt... kinda bad. Now that she stood over him, he seemed tiny and weak, almost childlike.

"Admit it." She said simply, coldly, "Admit I win."

Zim's look could have burned a hole in the sun, "For this round, Gaz-stink, for this round."

"Say it." Gaz demanded again, stepping forward and looming over him, "Say I win."

Zim looked away, refusing to look her in the eye and say it. His voice was small and laced with a quiet rage, "... you win."

"Good." The teenager turned and began storming over to her bag, "Now fix my Gameslave and leave me alone."

The irken didn't move from his place, if anything, his eyes went wide in surprise. Why wasn't she gloating? Why wasn't she trying to expose him? Why wasn't she enslaving him to her whim like a conquer should? Was his admit of defeat so small that it wasn't even worth her time? He was filled with a strange mixture of rage and curiosity. He wanted to scream at her to follow the proper protocol of victory, and yet, if she didn't he could walk away from this very minor defeat and lick his wounds.

Though she didn't show it, inside, Gaz felt... strange. For all Zim's screaming and shouting about destruction, she had just exposed him for the reality he was, simply a overreaching and foolish little alien. There was no great victory to be had in this, she didn't feel proud of what she'd done. If anything, she felt kinda bad. Perhaps she had gone a little too far in burning him, he was annoying yes but he didn't deserve that.

She walked back a moment later, bag around her shoulder before dropping the Gameslave onto Zim's chest. "Well, go on, fix it."

The irken took the small device and frowned at teen before slowly picking himself up. Once he was on his feet and once he had brushed himself down, he looked to the small gaming device in his hand and, with little emotion, commanded, "Gameslave, activate."

The device jumped back into life with a 'ping' and following array of lights and sounds. Gaz noticed she'd lost her place in the battle but that was fine, she had saved outside the boss room anyway.

"Thanks," She muttered as Zim handed the object back to her. She felt awkward and she couldn't explain why. Perhaps it was the look Zim was giving her, she couldn't place it. He was furious with her, his silence was enough for that, but his eyes betrayed another emotion. He had questions that he wasn't asking.

She turned and walked away but she could feel the irken's gaze on her back. Why did she feel bad for winning? Usually she enjoyed winning. She frowned at herself, she was getting soft, just because he was small and stupid didn't make his beating any less deserved.

And yet... why did she have the almost overwhelming feeling that she had opened Pandora's box?

* * *

_I didn't like the beginning of this chapter, or the bit about the Gameslave. I felt it was a little shoehorned in... sorry about that. I did like her fighting Zim though, I enjoyed writing it.  
_

_And yes, Gaz was supposed to be a little over the top in this chapter, it's all part of the story. _

_REFERENCES! Pigula, Vampire Piggy Hunter: Symphony of Squeals, and 'What is a man?' are all references to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. _

_Read. Review. Tell me what you liked, didn't like, bla bla anything like that. ALSO IMPORTANT! Suggest what you'd want to see more from this story! I'll update next week kids! TILL THEN!  
_


	3. Walking Home

_AN EARLY UPDATE! Yes you guys are so spoiled by me, but then again, you are my collected bunch of test subjects and I am your crazy overlord King of all IZ Fanfiction. So I guess it works out. _

_Anyway, this chapter is a nice chapter, it's a little sugary in places but it has some nice establishment going on, especially in the first 'page' as it where. I love the descriptions of Gaz in this, I feel it really adds a lot to her character. _

_Only one experiment this week. To see if FF is really not posting up this story on the 'update' page. Last week I'm almost positive it didn't, which annoyed me a lot. _

_Anyway, ENJOY KIDS!_

* * *

She hadn't seem Zim for the rest of the day, hell, she hadn't even heard him. Usually she caught glances of him at break, or more likely, heard him shouting at something or someone. It was hard to ignore Zim after all, he was a tiny, green guy with serious short man's syndrome. And yet since that afternoon she hadn't heard a sound.

Gaz stood outside the hi-skool, the long steps reaching down to the main road, cars rushing about in a frantic drive to get away from the prison-esk looking building. She wished she had her own car, she could sit in it at break times and play games with no distractions whatsoever, plus she could go and get whatever she wanted when she wanted it.

People walked about around her, chatting, laughing, some couple kissed with their hands around each other's waists.

And she stood in the centre, alone, with all these people moving about her. She didn't know why she was standing and waiting, waiting for who? Zim? He wouldn't want to talk to her or keep her company, and besides, she wouldn't talk to him either. She would walk with him beside her and play her game.

She blinked, and suddenly, she was alone. Now only stragglers, people with nothing to do or people waiting for lifts home were left, sitting on the skool walls in groups of three or fours chatting and laughing in the summer afternoon sun.

So why was she still waiting? Why not just walk home alone?

Inside she knew why she was waiting. She wanted to just... see him. Gaz hated herself because really she knew it was all thanks to that annoying feeling of guilt that had settled like a film of oil across her mind. It was thin, and could be broken with just one glance at his silly quiff hair.

Stupid guilt. She hated feeling it. Gaz would always get that stupid pang after punching Dib in the head for annoying her but the moment she saw him again she would feel better. Just knowing that those she had lashed out against were still... okay, made her feel less guilty about hurting them in the first place.

Gaz allowed a sigh of annoyance to escape her. Fine. If he was going to be a dick about this he could be, she was going home. Pulling her shoulder strap from her left shoulder to her right so the strap now went across her body rather than to her side, she set off, heavy boots crunching against the tiny stones on the pavement.

Stupid Zim. That annoying alien deserved every punch he received, hell, she was even starting to see why Dib hated the little green guy so much. He had a way of getting right into your head and staying there like a fly that buzzed about your mind but you could never swat.

She didn't feel like playing her game right now, rather, she unfurled the earphones from her MYphone and quickly threw on some heavy, angry death metal. She never went out without music in her ears. Gaz didn't want to look or hear anyone whilst she was out, she wanted to cut the world off and be like a ghost on it's streets. Unnoticed and forgotten in a glance.

It was hard enough connecting with her own family, never mind other people.

The streets were surprisingly empty, although from behind fences she could hear children laughing and dogs barking. A cat crossed her path, glancing at her for a moment before rushing across the road, avoiding a large dark purple and silver Jeep which growled past her.

She couldn't help but feel a sense of peace fall upon her. She liked this, being an observer, looking out at others. Gaz got angry and frustrated around people, she felt like she was surrounded by idiots. It was like when they were not around her, she could think of things to say, think of witty replies and intelligent conversation, but the moment she saw these people again it all just... blocked up. She just gave sharp answers and looked away and later cursed herself for not being more like she wanted to be.

The few times she'd really give 'being herself' effort and trying to talk with other people, she had always found other people to be backstabbing assholes, idiots or just annoying. She had given up trying to be nice to people when she was young and stopped bothering to be herself to other people soon after.

Gaz the anti-social loner was both the real and not the real her. It was... strange.

She looked down at this thought, her fingers playing slightly with the badges on her satchel. She didn't _need_ people though, well, other than the ones she shot online. People really were jerks, just one look at her fellow students confirmed that. She would never tell him, but sometimes, she could sympathise with Dib when he complained about being alone in a world with people who didn't believe him.

She was so far away in her thoughts that she didn't notice a small green figure step out from around a corner and into her path. Not until she was right on top of the alien did she finally stop.

The teen blinked in surprised as she almost stumbled into him and quickly took out her headphones, still somewhat shocked to see him pop out of nowhere. "Zim?"

"Hello Gaz-human," Zim addressed simply, almost sternly, like he was addressing someone he respected.

Immediately those scenarios she wished she could fill ran through her mind. Apologise for hurting him so bad, let him know you're not as stupid as Dib, thank him for fixing the Gameslave.

"What do you want?" Goddamnit.

"I want you." Zim replied simply, his purple-hazed eyes locking onto hers, reflecting an odd sort of sobriety that the irken rarely possessed.

If some other guy had told her this, she probably would have kicked them in the nuts and walked on but from Zim, she knew it meant something else entirely... and in it's own way, that was more worrying than the usual meaning.

She raised an eyebrow slowly, "What?"

"Today you defeated me in single combat," the irken comment quickly, an obvious hint of anger in his voice, but also, a strange sense of bitter respect, "Therefore, I demand that you teach me how you did it."

"... what?" This was unexpected. She blinked at this before frowning, "I beat you up and you ask me to show you how?" She scoffed, "Zim. You're really stupid."

The invader growled and stepped forward at her, his eyes blazing with a reserved anger. She suspected that he really didn't want to do this, which only made her wonder why he was bothering. "An invader learns from his mistakes, Gaz-stink. If you beat me in a fight I must know how."

"So you can use it against me later?" The teen couldn't help but smirk back, "How very cunning of you."

"QUIET!" Zim barked before shaking a fist at the woman, "Teach Zim your combat skills! I demand it of you!"

"... no," Gaz replied with a frown, "I told you to leave me alone." She went to walk around the small irken, but he quickly stepped in her way.

His eyes locked onto hers and without showing it Gaz was surprised at the level of determination that shone within them. "You must show me! Or I'll-"

"You'll do what?" Gaz snapped back, her patience with the little irken growing thin, "Fight me and get your ass kicked again?"

"If needs be, yes," Zim replied with cold determination. The reply made Gaz wonder just how suicidal the irken was, he wouldn't really put himself through that kind of beating every day just to learn how to throw a punch, would he? Gaz may be mean to those who annoy her but she wasn't a bully. She hit only when it was required of her... or when Dib annoyed her.

There was a moment of silence in the street, masking the battle of the wills between Zim and Gaz. The tiny irken refused to step down to the taller human. Yes her height and gothic appearance made her an intimidating opponent, but he was a Invader elite and he would not be defeated again, not when he could be on the verge of uncovering the very thing that could tip the scales in his battles with Dib.

"Go home, Zim." Gaz's deadpan voice finally shattered the glass air between them. She turned and walked past the irken, who let her pass, perhaps now seeing that simply forcing her to train him was not going to work.

He needed some kind of leverage, something to offer her which she didn't have. She was about to cross the road and away from Zim and his mind raced for something, anything to grab her attention with. "A reward!"

Gaz paused, stopping just to look over her shoulder and back at the annoying little irken. She didn't say anything though, just narrowed her eyes at him. However, Zim took advantage of this and quickly pressed, "I'll reward you! Anything you want, ZIM will give it to you. Just let me know the secrets of your fighting arts."

"Anything?" Gaz had to admit, this was... interesting. She wondered just what exactly she could get out of Zim, especially since she knew how utterly vast his resources were.

"Anything." The irken brought a hand up to his chin slowly, a cunning smile forming on his face, "For example, I noticed your puny gaming system is amazingly backwards in the face of mighty irken gaming technology."

Mighty irken gaming technology? That was a new one. However, Gaz couldn't help but feel a sudden surge of interest, she was a video game addict, any offer of something new and better than the last gen of gaming was too tempting for her to reject.

Besides, a new thought hit her. Zim was essentially handing himself over to her... almost like a servant. She could tell him any kind of crap and he'd buy it, all in the name of defeating Dib. She could really have some fun with this, both in a sadistic sense and in a more creative sense. She could make him into someone that, just perhaps, she wouldn't mind eating with at lunch times.

Now that was far more valuable than a new game.

Inside a little nagging voice told her that she was only doing this because she still felt bad about those large, dark bruises all over his face but she pushed it down. "Fine." She couldn't stop a tiny smirk appearing on her face. "I'll be along later today."

"VICTORY FOR ZIIIM!" The irken shouted, a grin plastered on his face.

Gaz only shook her head and turned, walking away and down the street, earphones put back and her world again blocked out by guitar solos. Zim stood and watched her, his pride returned. Today's defeat had been humiliating, however, like any good solider he had turned a defeat into a victory. The Gaz-stink was a force to be reckoned with, he had always know that, but now he was finally using her own destructive power for his own needs. With the secrets of Gaz's power under his command, he would be unstoppable!

He cackled softly to himself, yes, he had a _very_ good feeling about this plan.

* * *

_So another chapter over and done with! Aren't you guys happieee? The next chapter will be all Zim-focused for a change, a bit of which you saw at the end of this. _

_The only reference here being MYphone and I don't really have to explain that, do I?  
_

_Thanks to all ya'll comments last time, they really helped spur me on to write this chapter. I'm also playing with a few plot ideas now, making expanding on this whole story a bit more and making something more epic with it, as well as perhaps landing in a few original takes on old ideas. _

_Tell me what you think guys. Read, review, what you liked and didn't! Till next time! _


	4. Playtime at Zim's Place

_Another awesome chapter arriving for yoooou kids! And this time, it's a bit of a perspective shift, another experiment for you, my wonderful test subjects, to be a part off! Do you like the way Zim acts in this? Dislike? Do you like the perspective change or would you rather me keep on Gaz's side? Perhaps you'd want me to move between them both?_

_Another part of this chapter is that we start seeing the first pangs of LOEV between these two... well, perhaps just Zim for now. But it is a pang nonetheless!_

_Have fun reading guys!_

* * *

The irken was, for the first time since he'd arrived on this planet excited to have a visitor arrive at his house. Of course that wasn't to say he was also unprepared, oh no, not Zim. He had practically doubled security and had added extra cameras around his base, just to make sure.

Gaz wasn't going to steal anything, he knew that, but for all he knew Dib could be piggybacking off this and attaching all kinds of spy cameras to her clothes to try and gather information on him.

He practically spat at the thought of that annoying teenager. It wasn't that he was now officially and undeniably taller than him, it was that he seemed to get more _annoying_ with every inch his stupid body gained!

Zim however also felt something more about the situation... he was jealous. Yes it was petty and stupid of him to be that way about something he couldn't help, but still, seeing his arch nemesis grow taller with every year sent waves of subtle envy running through his mind. Zim was over one hundred and fifty years old, and yet he hadn't gained an inch since he turned twenty.

Stupid humans and their stupid growing.

Of course that old temptation was there, the one he'd had since being declared 'shortest' of all irkens. He could always give himself a helping hand in boosting his height, he had the technology after all... no. The irken shook his head at this thought. It was illegal, and not to mention, utterly dishonourable.

He focused on the flip side, after all, he got an extra sense of pride whenever he beat Dib's ass into the dirt. Defeating an opponent taller than he was reminded Zim that while Dib may have height, Zim still had his overwhelming firepower to fall back on.

And soon he would also have the secrets of Gaz's unstoppable fury.

He was currently working in his hologram room, the room where he expected the vast majority of his new training would take place. He was installing the last of the added security needed, a simple matter of some rewiring and some welding, just in case he needed to stop Gaz for anything.

Plus, with the extra cameras, he could record her every move from every angle. He could analyse her technique to perfection.

The last of the sparks from his welder splashed onto his goggles, tiny fragments of metal bouncing off them as he smiled. He was attached to the wall by two long wires holding him to the ceiling of the huge domed room, his Spider-Legs doing all the work for him.

He removed his black and green tinted goggles, large and deep red eyes looking to the tiny camera embedded in the wall.

"Computer!" Zim barked suddenly, "Run a diagnostic check! Make sure this hologram room and all recent upgrades are running perfectly." He let the wire drop him down to the floor, his Spider-Legs disappearing into his PAK. "I cannot afford anything to go wrong with the first training lesson."

"Running diagnostic," The computer replied with a bored interest, "Diagnostic complete, everything is working fine."

"And Gir?" Zim questioned loudly, "Where is he?"

"With Gaz," The computer replied, still sounding bored.

"Ah, good," the little irken nodded to himself before the realisation of the statement hit him. "WHAT?" He almost jumped in panic, "What is Gaz doing here? Why wasn't I informed she'd arrived?"

"Because you told me not to interrupt you when you were working," The computer replied as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"... FINE," Zim really had to wonder sometimes if his whole base was just out to get him. Well, okay, that was a bit far, it wasn't out to get him it was just... annoyingly incompetent. He huffed loudly and folded his arms. "Send her in."

"She's already approaching," The computer replied again, "Really, Zim, you need to keep up with this."

"SHUT UP!" Zim screamed at the... wall. The bad side to having a super intelligent computer was that Zim couldn't yell at it's face when it annoyed him.

A door at the far end of the room swooshed open and Zim turned his head, his eyes landing on the gothic teenager with his own tiny robot running around her screaming loudly. She looked rather displeased at this, which only extracted a mocking smile from Zim. "Has Gir been entertaining you?"

"Entertaining isn't the word I'd use," she spoke through gritted teeth and her eye twitched, "Take him away before I destroy him."

"Gir! Heel!" Zim stood proudly as his robot soldier saluted, his eyes flashing red before launching himself like a rocket into the air and landing with a smash beside Zim.

Gaz only watched this with a somewhat blank expression. Clearly she didn't expect much more from the insane pair of aliens. She sighed in annoyance before walking on into the room, approaching the tiny green irken and looking around the massive dome.

She looked... impressed, her amber eyes flashing as they traversed the great space around them. "So this is your training room." She stopped as he got to his side, putting her fists onto her hips, "Well when do you want to start?"

"As soon as your pathetic human body is ready," Zim replied quickly, "I will bring in the training equipment and start the hologram."

Gaz seemed rather interested in this, her eyes again flashing again. Wow, she seemed almost excited. Zim had to pause, he'd never seem the woman act like this before. For a moment he felt rather proud of himself, then his desire to learn took over once more.

"COMPUTER!" He screamed, causing a visible flinch from Gaz, "Bring me the training equipment!"

For the next hour Zim showed Gaz through various training missions, letting her get used to the irken equipment she had to use, the holograms jumping up around them one another another. To Zim's great interest and yet great worry, she aced every one, at one point almost beating his own high score but than again, it was the mission to repel Dib from the base.

When it came to the hand-to-hand training, Zim took a moment out, just to watch Gaz in progress.

As he sat to one side, his eyes monitored her every moment. She was fighting some irken of equal size and strength. His eyes watched as her body moved, she was so supple, dodging the punches thrown by the hologram with ease. Her legs were rooted the ground, centring her small gravity perfectly. She panted, her chest heaving and beads of sweat running from her temple. There was a terrible focus in her eyes, a need to destroy this make believe enemy before her.

Her movements seemed... compelling, a word Zim had never used to describe for a human before.

How long had he known her? This girl of anger and finesse? No, she wasn't a girl, not any more then Dib was a boy. They were becoming adults before Zim's eyes, their bodies moving through their species puberty. They were becoming stronger, faster, smarter... and it worried him.

He had analysed these humans and he had come to a conclusion. They were not mammals, but viruses. They multiplied and consumed every natural resource until there was nothing left. They were dumb but strong and vicious and sometimes all a species needed was strength and cruelty to survive.

Gaz was a female of her race, a fighter, a warrior. He wondered if she would be spared or killed when the Empire arrived. She was too dangerous to let live, yet, to useful to destroy.

"Zim!" The irken blinked as he name was called out. "Zim, wake up."

"I am awake," The irken blinked, the world suddenly rushing in around him. "What do you want?"

Gaz was suddenly standing in front of him, her fists once again on her hips, her body weighted on her right let. "You looked about a million miles away," She was panting, obviously the work out against the hologram had worn her down.

"I was right here, stupid human," Zim quickly snapped, annoyed that she'd caught him spacing slightly. Weird, he never usually did that.

"Right, whatever," Gaz replied with a raised eyebrow before huffing and sitting down beside the small irken. "Well I beat your stupid hologram. It was kinda like a Yuu Fit that could fight back." She groaned suddenly, rubbing her shoulder and wincing slightly, "It packs a bit of a punch though."

"Of course it does," Zim commented back with a note of satisfaction, glad something in his base had landed a hit on the girl, "It's designed to push you to your limits."

Gaz hummed for a moment in thought before looking back to the irken,"Well, what about you? Aren't you going to fight me today?"

"No." Zim put a hand to his face for a moment, the bruises had gone but the memory was still very fresh in his mind, "I've done enough of that today."

"Understandable." Gaz replied quickly and with a nod, a flash of a memory in her eyes.

There was silence for a moment in which Zim could hear the girl gaining her breath back beside him. The silence became heavy and every other sound in the base became amplified. Somewhere a machine beeped consistently, Gir screamed at something and the sound of something heavy clunking against something else echoed from the unknown depths.

"You fight well," Zim only realised what he'd said after he'd said it, "I mean, for a human." He smirked however at his next statement, "It was entertaining to watch."

At this, Gaz seemed to freeze, her eyes, for a second, growing wide. She got up suddenly, turning and walking towards the exit of the room, "I'm going home. See you tomorrow."

"What? Why are you going now?" Zim couldn't help but ask suddenly, jumping up and staring at her.

"It's getting late and I'm hungry," Gaz replied without stopping, her voice again tinged with something that Zim couldn't understand. She sounded as if there was something trying to punch through, but a greater part of her was holding it back.

Zim found himself following her quickly, his short legs almost jogging to catch and keep up with her, "I'll send Gir to get you food."

"Why are you doing this?" She snapped suddenly, turning her eyes on him. "Am I some kind of joke to you? Some kind of subject to analyse?"

"What? I do not remember laughing at any point today," He frowned at her, for the second time that day, refusing to back down to her anger. He paused in front of her, is ruby eyes locking onto hers,"And while I am studying your fighting style I could not care for anything else."

Gaz seemed to waiver for a second before she visibly relaxed, although not completely. "Zim I'm going home. We'll continue tomorrow."

"Fine," His own tone surprised him, he had said that a little more... annoyed than he'd assumed he was.

He watched as Gaz walked away, his mind still running on confusion. Humans were such a confusing bunch of animals, and try as he might, he knew he'd probably never figure them out. But that wasn't too much of a worry for him, after all, you didn't need to understand something to conquer it.

* * *

_CHAPTER EEEEND. I hope you liked it, it was fun writing for Gaz and Zim in this, although it was hard. I had to make sure I knew what Gaz was thinking, yet, express it through emotion alone. Plus, I had to make sure Zim's 'day dream' about Gaz wasn't too soppy. Right now what's building in him in a sense of respect, that had to shine through regardless of whatever else. _

_REFERENCES: The line about humans being viruses was stolen from Agent Smith in The Matrix. YuuFit is obviously a cheep Wiifit reference.  
_

_Nothing else... man I gotta start putting more references in this. _

_ANYWAY, next chapter goes back to Gaz-ness... unless you guys want more inner Zim thoughts. Hope you enjoyed it, please tell me what you thought. _

_Read and review! _


	5. Ignoring the Obvious

_FINNAAAALLLYYY. An update from me! I bet you guys thought I was dead, huh? Well no, in all actuality I went visiting my dearest girlfriend Mari (her DA page is linked on my profile) and spent New Years with her. She lives 4000 miles away in the US :3 so it was quite the trip and back. I also got caught up in doing a lot of coursework and all that madness. So no worries, I'm back now and hopefully we'll be getting back onto a regular writing/updating groove. _

_So yes, another chapter here! This one has a nice twist at the end I feel, and it's nice as I was worrying that the story was moving a little too slowly. _

_Anyways, enough of my babbling. ONWARD AND UPWARD!_

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Something was wrong. Zim wasn't sure what it was but something was wrong. Maybe it was himself, maybe there was a glitch in his programming somewhere that was causing these feelings. Maybe he was just ill with something, heck, Zim didn't know. What he did know however was that it was getting in the way of his training.

"Dammit Zim, what the hell is wrong with you?" Gaz spat out as she leaned over the irken, here eyes frowning down at him. "Can't you keep your head in the game for ten minutes? I was getting a high score there!"

"My apologies, Gaz-stink." The irken muttered as he picked himself back up, the last echoes of their simulation vanishing around them. "I was... distracted."

By his damn teacher. What was it about her that kept drawing his eye to her?

"You practically walked in front of that rocket," She scolded again, "What the hell were you thinking?"

He knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that she was on a high score roll and he wouldn't let that be stopped by a cheep shot from a hologram. The thing is though was why? Why did he do that? It was such a pointless action, no not just pointless, but detrimental to his own high score! And yet... he still had felt the need to stop a rocket with his face just so she could get the bonus points.

_Why? _

"I wasn't looking." He lied quickly. "My irken senses were blinded by your stupid human... ness." He finished with a roll of his hand.

"Yeah well next time just try and tune me out, kay?" Gaz chuckled a little, something she had been doing a lot lately, but Zim was sure she had yet to notice.

"Affirmative," the small irken agreed, brushing himself off, "For now however my belly rumbles for protein and sugar."

"Whatever." Gaz replied again, turning and looking over to the doorway to the hologram room. She was always bored when Zim got his 'sugar and protein' snacks, mostly because she couldn't eat any of them. She'd tried one of them and recoiled instantly, it being the most sour and sugary thing she'd ever tasted. "Can you make Gir make me a pizza?" She wondered out loud as the small irken began marching ahead of her in his odd marching step.

"... I'm going to imagine you didn't say that," Zim countered loudly, "Just as I'm still in the process of deleting the memory of the last time you asked Gir to make you a pizza."

Oh yeah, that. Huh. That hadn't been the most pleasant of experiences. Gaz shook her head, the images of cheese covered walls still fresh in her mind. "... how about we go out?"

The words seemed to just slip from her tongue, no real thought behind it. However, the moment she spoke she almost seemed to regret it. Why? It wasn't like it meant anything, even though it would technically be the first time she would have ever been out to eat with a boy who wasn't her brother.

The request surprised the irken slightly, however, he already knew his answer, even the idea didn't seem altogether... unpleasant. "I cannot eat earth foods, you know that." Zim scolded her. "We'll eat here."

"Oh come on, I've seen you, you can eat some things," She did have a point. Years of staying on this planet had done some good to his digestive tolerance after all, even if most food was still stomach burningly awful to him. "I know you like noodles."

"Noodles?" Now THAT perked his interest as it was one of the few human foods that he could eat without throwing up, although only as long as it was vegetable noodles. He doubted his body would ever be able to handle the meat of this world.

"... alright," He shrugged as the two stepped into the shuttle room elevator. "But you pay."

"What?" Gaz growled, "You're way more loaded than I am!"

"But it was your idea!" Zim counted quickly, "Therefore you have to pay! Besides, I can never understand your stupid earth moneys."

The young goth huffed, "Fine," and for a moment Gaz was about to say 'but you buy the next'. Than she realised this was most likely to be a one off, which again made it all the more strange. Why was Zim even agreeing to this? And why couldn't she get the word 'date' out of her head? It wasn't like she even liked Zim that way, although she had to admit, in the three days since their first fighting session together she had grown to... tolerate Zim a little more. Some of his quirks were less annoying and, dare she say it, kinda funny.

Besides, one thing she couldn't deny was that her lunchtimes were now much more entertaining. She and Zim would sit and discuss battle tactics, she'd tell him about how to punch properly and he'd tell her embarrassing secrets about Dib she didn't know. Like how he still had his old blue security blanket hidden under his pillow.

The trip to the noodle house wasn't that long. Zim simply put on his terrible disguise flew them there in his ship, disguising itself with a rather handy cloaking device. It was slightly surprising to the young woman, as Gaz had never been inside his ship before. Even though it was cramped, Gaz couldn't help but feel slightly prideful. She bet Dib had never been in Zim's ship.

There were few good tasting human meals, just as there were few good humans in general however Prof Chow's Noodle House was one of those few places that Zim actually liked.

"I'm thinking of kidnapping this Prof Lee and making him cook food so I may send it to my Tallest," Zim continued as he sat down, "They will surely send me more tanks and other blowy-uppy-stuff if I do!"

"Right," Gaz replied, sitting across from him. Again, that horrible little word 'date' would not leave her mind. This wasn't a date though, this was just two friends getting dinner together. Friends did that, right? She was sure they did. Wait, she was calling Zim her friend now? "Well what are you getting?"

"Food, duh," Zim frowned at her from across the table, "Why else would we be here?"

"... very witty," The teenager commented with a frown, "Any other smart ass comments you want to make?"

The irken smiled, for a moment, a sly intelligence flashing through his eyes as it sometimes did, "Only if you have any more smartass observations."

"Touché," Gaz fought back a smile. He was getting better at their banter, she'd noticed he was starting to react a little quicker, even at times daring light insults. Whether this was his natural boldness shining through or if he was feeling the same sense of companionship Gaz felt she wasn't sure. In some ways she wanted to leave it at that and yet, something inside her wanted to know more, to answer that little burning question in the back of her mind. _Why was this fun?_

The arrival of the waitress, a small yet well shaped jewish girl with sightly tanned skin and sunshine blond hair was a welcome break from her thoughts. She ordered the chow mien and Zim ordered a bowl of vegetable noodle soup. Zim got no drink, Gaz got a Mr Pib.

"So... erm..." She quickly put the straw to her mouth, the feeling of odd social awkwardness washing over her. What was she supposed to talk about? The training? They'd already done that today.

Zim too felt the odd sense of awkwardness, thus he took a stab in the dark. "So how is the Dib-beast? Is his pathetic body improving?"

"Yeah," Gaz replied, looking to one side for a moment, "He stopped sneezing on everything. I think he'll be fine by Monday."

"Not good," The irken mumbled to himself, "My training is not nearly complete."

Gaz was pleasantly surprised at this. She had thought that Zim was actually getting along well, he was certainly doing better at defending himself but his strength was still far below hers. "You still want to train? Even by next week?"

"Of course," Zim replied with a tone that sounded like he'd expected her to do so anyway.

"... But what about Dib? He's already noticed I come home later than normal, he only asked once but still, he'll notice something." The one time he'd asked Gaz just threatened to kick his ass, that shut him up in no time. But she knew her brother, he was told to shut up and that only made him want to find out even more.

Deny Dib something and he bent his whole being on getting it.

"I will deal with Dib," The irken replied with a simple wave of a hand, "I've been dealing with him for years, I can keep doing so even now."

"Yeah but he'll notice me standing in the background while you slap each other like girls." Gaz spoke with a smirk. "What will you do then?"

Zim paused, thinking for a moment before looking up, his contacts growing wide. "I will hide you! He can't find you if you're hidden."

The young teenager just blinked, "... right. I propose that we maybe break it up, we train on certain days, you fight Dib on the other. That way he keeps out of our business."

The irken considered this proposal, it worked, but... something was bothering him. It felt in some way connected to the feelings he'd been having lately whenever he saw Gaz, yet he couldn't name it. He spoke, but as he spoke, he did not recognise the way his voice sounded. "But that means we'll see each other less."

The tone of his voice was at once, blank, yet pulling, yet blunt in it's honest. Was he upset? Or just stating the obvious? She tried to search his eyes but whether it was his contacts or that he was damn good at hiding his feelings she didn't know but she found nothing within them. Only an intense curiosity to see how she would reply.

"... well it's not like we're friends, right?" She folded her arms and avoided his eyes.

She didn't see him say it but she heard his reply and inside, a piece of her which had been building this whole week crumbled.

"Right."

* * *

_GASP DRAMATIC ENDING GASP._

_So yes, time to kick some extra drama juice into this and have some more fun writing the growing romance between the two. I have some other ideas in mind as well, so it's all looking bright. _

_The first reference here is Prof Chows, aka, the awesome DOC CHE'S NOODLE HOUSE. Love eating at that place._

_Also, the waitress who serves them is Zimadonna, aka, a good friend of mine on DA who has some awesome IZ art up :D CHECK HER OUT. _

_That's all for now folks. Please tell me what you liked, didn't like etc etc and next week you're all getting a pleasent surprise... a chapter focused on a certain scythed haired, flu ridden paranormal detective... _


	6. No Need To Change

_Well it's about darn tootin time for another update my lovelies. Today's experiment is one of direction and tension. How do you guys react to having the story shift to a brand new character, and, how well does it work to increase tension in this chapter? _

_Personally I'm worried on how this chapter turned out, mainly because I didn't think the ending worked as well as I wanted it too. Maybe a little forced? Mm. Anyway, the theme is now set, and we can start working towards the next climax of the story._

_Anyway, read, enjoy, REVIEW!_

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The room was bathed in the glow of a computer screen. Three actually. And if one listened, one could hear the soft hum of fans cooling motherboards. Dib's computer set up was a geek's dream, top of the line, almost military-level hardware with full surround sound, fan and liquid cooling systems, several experimental graphic cards, processors and a one petabyte hard drive.

The boy was sat, hunched in front of his screens. His long cowlick hair curved down towards the back of his head, his shoulders covered in his favourite sea blue blanket which almost utterly covered the rest of his skinny, lanky form. He pushed his round glasses up for a moment as he rubbed his amber eyes before looking back to the screen, the stream of words reflected back on his glasses.

Since he'd been stricken down with the cold he'd spent most of his time either asleep or at his computer... which was mostly what he did at home anyway. He raised his bowl of noodles up slowly, taking a pair of chopsticks and quickly gathering some noodles up before chewing on them silently, all the while his eyes never leaving his screen.

He was reading, as he always seemed to be reading, the translated encyclopaedia from Tak's ship, the damn thing still sitting mostly useless in his garage. He'd been trying to repair it for years now, but some things were just a little too difficult to fix, even for a fifteen year old with a one hundred and seventy IQ.

That and he wasn't willing to deal with Serbian terrorists to get the plutonium needed to power the ships flux capacitor.

Luckily the boy had managed to pull the ship's memory's out before it'd shut down, although he'd had to translate everything himself. A full year of constant work, night after night, before he'd finished and now he just sat and read through every article, as everything in there wasn't just about the irken empire.

Lists of aliens from other planets, other empires, history's and theories and science beyond his imagination. The annoying thing was that it was all very, very biased.

"Thus the glorious Irken empire, personally led by the brave and very handsome Tallests Red and Purple defeated the horrible slaughtering rat people of Blorch." Dib read out loud and rolled his eyes at this. So many articles ended this way. Did every Tallest do this or was it just Red and Purple? And what kind of names were Red and Purple anyway? Irkens were so weird.

He sneezed suddenly and wiped his nose on his blanket. Ugh, stupid cold. He had felt so run down and even now he had a slight headache, although that could have been from looking at three screens all day.

Dib had finally covered the last of the 'recent' irken military conquests. Recent being that this encyclopaedia was now a good three years old... minimum. He had no idea how often Tak had kept it up to date. He was still working out how to calculate the difference between irken and human time keeping, the irken's worked on a whole different numerical system after all.

Right now however he felt like taking a break, getting some aspirin and maybe watching Aliens. He remembered telling Zim that it was a documentary and having him hide in his house paranoid that 'the Riply-beast' was hunting him down. Man, that was a fun week. The boy slowly uncurled from his seat, showing his long, blue and green pyjama pants and the flash of a black t-shirt with a Z? sign on it before his arms wrapped the blanket around him.

Like some great cloaked figure the tall teenage boy glided silently through his house. The lights were all turned off, plunging it into darkness, why? Well no one was home so what was the point of turning lights on?

Besides, Dib could see in the dark just fine and he was a master of sneaking around by now. His feet tapped only lightly on the tile floor as he entered the kitchen, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for anything that could quell his headache.

He sneezed again, the sound almost echoing throughout the house as he muttered, "Goddamn cold."

Suddenly, almost without warning, the door to the house shot open with a bang. It was so sudden that Dib practically jumped out of his skin, yet, almost instinctively the boy threw himself up against the nearest wall, peering over just slightly at the intruder.

Or rather, _intruders_.

"Gaz stink, why did you bring me to your smelly home?" The voice cut to the core of Dib, making him want to leap out and smash the irken's face in with his foot. Sure, it'd been a very long time since he'd been fighting Zim, years in fact, but did that mean he hated him any less?

No. There was no slight peace, no sense of respect for him, no 'they sat together at lunch time' or anything like that. Dib _hated_ Zim. He would always hate Zim and Zim would always hate Dib. There was still that sick little part of him that dreamt for the day when he got to slice Zim's belly open and dig around his insides.

Yeah, he knew he needed therapy... he'd get some right after he finished Zim's autopsy.

He was about to walk out and lay the smackdown on the annoying green alien before he heard Gaz's reply. "Because we need to talk."

They needed to talk? About what?

"Why here?" Zim seemed to comment quickly, his tone low, "With the Dib-stink upstairs."

"He'll be asleep by now, he's sick, remember?" Gaz seemed to have a strange tone with Zim, it seemed her voice wasn't commanding it was more... informal. Odd. Gaz always addressed others as inferiors.

"Fine, but Zim still demands to know what you're up too." Dib clenched his fist, what the hell could this annoying little douchebag want with his sister?

"Why aren't we friends?" The question utterly struck Dib blank, and even though he didn't see it, it did the same to Zim.

"... what?" The alien's voice seemed so devoid of the usual zest and energy it usually held that Dib almost thought it was a new person entirely.

"Why aren't we friends?" The young man was so sure he could hear a crack within Gaz's voice. "We've been hanging out every night of this week, we play games and go out together. Why aren't we friends?"

Dib almost had a heart attack. They'd been hanging out? And going on, dare he say it, _dates_? No way, this couldn't be happening, his sister couldn't be betraying him like this.

"Because you are a human and I am an irken, we are enemies." Zim's answer seemed forced and cold.

"Don't give me that crap," Gaz snapped back, again, the unusual amount of emotion in her voice shocking Dib to his core. Just what had happened when he'd gone? It seemed the world had collapsed outside his bedroom and gone utterly insane. "Why won't you say you're my friend! What? Are you scared to allow someone into your selfish little world? Or maybe you just think I'm not good enough to be friends with you."

Zim seemed to pause, and in a voice that Dib didn't know he could summon, the alien replied, "... does the Gaz-beast consider Zim her friend?"

Gaz now went quiet, Dib could hear her moving on the couch, she was probably looking away and trying to avoid the question as she sometimes did when faced with big things in life. However, like the Gaz he knew, it didn't take long for her to answer. "... yes."

Dib almost leapt out there and then. He didn't care how sick he was, hell, he would sneeze all over Zim if it made him get the hell out of his house as soon as possible. He was NOT going to let his little sister be corrupted and turned against him by that psychotic little alien. But his logic and sensibility held on, that and he knew in his weakened state he would not be able to fight off both Zim and Gaz who would certainly be infuriated that her brother had been spying on her.

"I see." Zim seemed to go quiet for a moment, as if for once his brain was being put to use. He seemed to sigh, which was the first time Dib had ever heard the irken sigh. "Gaz-beast, I cannot be your friend because... I cannot be your friend.."

The teenager felt like laughing. Zim was truly the saddest person on the planet if he didn't know how to be someone's friend. And hell, he wasn't FROM this planet and he was the saddest person, how hilarious was that!

"What? Weren't you friends with Keef?" Gaz quickly replied in an angry tone. "You can be friends with Keef but not me?"

"That was for show and besides, I am not accustomed to having such... company." Zim commented in a sharp tone. "Irkens do not make friends with aliens."

HA, he could say that again. Even from the very edited irken encyclopaedia Dib could tell how deep the hatred of other alien races were for the irken race. Not only that, but irken society itself was so... isolating. The efforts of the individual were placed above all things, except their height of course. It was truly in Zim's nature to be alone and look only after himself.

"Why can't you?" The young girl's question seemed so simple. "You've been here so long, Zim, why can't you just allow this one change?"

There seemed to be a second where Zim paused, as if something was at the tip of his worm like tongue before he stiffly replied, "I do not need to change! I am fine as I am!"

"You're a terrible liar, Zim," Gaz spat out, her voice sounding like a mixture of anger and desperation. "Tell me the truth you ass."

"That is the truth!" The irken's voice was high pitched and Dib knew from experience it really only did that when he was lying and getting desperate to hide something. "Now stop asking Zim stupid questions!"

There was a long pause before before Gaz slowly began to speak. "You know you can't do this forever. You can't just keep pretending you're still this great evil invader from space."

"Shut it human!" Zim seemed far too defensive for his own good, "Zim will one day kill you all! Just because I haven't got around to it yet doesn't mean it won't happen!"

"I think you should go." She seemed to be moving stiffly, "Please. Leave."

"I'm going." The irken replied in a vicious tone, "You confuse me, Gaz beast."

There was another moment of silence as Dib listened to his hated enemy walk towards the door. Then Gaz said something that almost made him cheer. "We shouldn't see each other anymore."

"Why?" The irken commented simply.

"Because... no." Gaz's voice seemed so stiff, so... forced. It was as if inside she was ready to burst and yet that great concrete wall which she'd built around her own feelings was forcing her to guard every word from her mouth. "I don't want to teach you anymore. Go home."

The irken must have faltered at the door. "Gaz-beast, I don't under-"

"GO HOME!" Gaz's roar made Dib jump, however, it must have gone unnoticed by the girl and the alien in the other room.

Dib heard no more words after that. Zim seemed to be silent, than he heard the door open and slam. Hard. Gaz made a strange sort of noise, like something was caught in her throat before she mumbled something, what it was the young teen wasn't sure, but he caught the word 'dammit' very clearly.

She then turned and stormed up the stairs and a few moments later her own door slammed. Dib finally let himself breathe in the kitchen, sinking to the floor and letting the blanket curl up around him. He wasn't mad at Gaz, she had turned him down. If anything he was very proud of her. No, no no, this was Zim's fault. That... weird little freak had fallen for his sister and had probably tried to put his horrible alien hands on her somehow.

Dib slowly frowned within the dark of the kitchen. He didn't care if he wasn't feeling one hundred percent, he was going to make Zim pay... and pay big.

* * *

_SO. This chapter is all over with, what do you guys think? Lots of DRAMALLAMAS going on here. I'm going to spend a little more time building on this idea of Zim 'changing' in the next couple of chapters, as well as Dib's horrible revenge and Gaz's feelings at losing Zim over this argument. _

_It's gonna be a fun time. _

_REFERENCES. The whole Syrian terrorists and plutonium and FLUX CAPACITOR is of course from the amazing film, BACK TO THE FUTURE!_

_Z? is a reference to JV's comic book, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac._

_Laying the smackdown is a reference to WWE's The Rock. _

_As always, tell me what you thought, didn't like, liked etc etc. Feedback is important kids! And don't forget to tell me more of what you want and don't want! _

_TILL? NEXT TIME!_


	7. Zim's New Resolution

_An update! YAY! And kinda early too considering I thought that I'd stuggle to update this week. Huh. Weird how things go, ammarite?_

_Anyway, in this chapter we have a MAJOR PLOT ADVANCEMENT. See if you can spot it._

_Have fun reading guys!_

* * *

Zim kicked over another... thing. What was it, a power generator? Oh who cared, it needed to be kicked. He'd been infuriated since the moment he got home, in fact, he'd been infuriated since his whole time flying home. Hell even Gir had kept quiet due to the intense rage that was flaring within his eyes.

"THAT GAZ-BEAST! AGH!" He shouted again, throwing some random object across his lab and hearing it hit a wall with a satisfying crunch, shattering into pieces. "WHY ARE ALL HUMANS SO... STUPID?"

How dare she ask him questions about their friendship! They didn't even _have_ a friendship! It wasn't like Zim even wanted to be friends with her anyway, he didn't even know how to be a friend in the first place! All he wanted was to learn how to kick the Dib-stink's butt and rule over the planet!

"Stupid, stupid humans," Zim growled, pacing about his lab and looking for something to smash, it seemed however that he'd already smashed most of the stuff in is lab already. "Why do the always have to," He paused, thinking of the right word, "complicate things with their," He punched the air a few times, "Dumbness!"

He sat down onto his favourite work chair, it was long and curved and allowed him to lean back without his PAK digging into his back. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling strangely exhausted after that outburst.

He could also feel his anger moving away, although it was still there of course, just waiting for someone to walk in and disturb him so he could shout at them.

But no one did. No one ever disturbed him, except for Gir and the annoying little robot was no where to be seen.

He winced to himself as he felt something move inside him, not a physical thing, but an emotional one. Something was... annoying his heart, like a hand squeezing it. He growled, feeling suddenly restless and wishing that he could do something about it.

Zim's mind immediately thought of Gaz and the squeezing lessoned. But the invader shook his head and forced the thought away, he didn't want to talk to the stupid annoying human girl. The squeezing tightened and Zim forced a gasp down.

What was going on with him lately? Why was he getting so... attached to Gaz? She was just a human! She was a worthless tool to be used and disposed off once all her fighting powers had been absorbed and adapted.

So what if she was very good at fighting? So what if she was strong and powerful and admirable? So what if she was a warrior above the normal pig-stupid humans of this planet?

He was an irken soldier and it was illegal and traitorous to mingle with the enemy. He knew he had been pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable already, his report to the Tallest was coming up and the pressure was on him to explain his actions.

Although he may just skip over the whole 'learning from the enemy' thing and just hope they buy it. The big fear for Zim however was that he was already far behind the others, even by now Blorch, Skoodges conquered planet, was in the final stages of being converted into a massive industrial complex.

And he had barely made a dint in the fight for Earth... if it wasn't for Dib, he knew he'd be done already.

The irken growled to himself. DIB, that annoyingly tall and big headed and smelly and STUPID human! He thwarted him at every turn! Well, almost every turn, there had been plenty of times when Zim had gone out of his way just to utterly torment the young boy.

Well, he was hardly a young boy anymore, was he?

Zim paused on his chair to consider this. He knew that his enemy was going through his species puberty. He was getting taller, stronger, faster... and Zim could not deny that Dib's punches hurt a heck of a lot more than they used to. Part of why he'd asked for training from Gaz was so he could try and match the young man at fighting strength.

The irken knew he still had the resources and fire-power to keep his enemy from winning their war, but for how long? Soon the boy would be an adult and he would have access to all the tools he would ever need to begin winning their war. He had changed, adapted, Zim had not and it was starting to cost him.

That phrase Gaz spoke came to his mind. _Why can't you allow this one change?_

Zim ran had hand across his chin and for once, rather than throw himself into a frenzy about why Gaz was wrong... he thought on this. He hadn't changed his ways in the years he'd been here, but it wasn't irken to change. When you were given your job, you were expected to do it. He was cloned with one billion others, what little set him apart for his identity was given to him and he was told to fight.

Why was that such a terrible thing? He knew his life's purpose and he was doing it, that was all he needed.

One thing he'd noticed about this planet, about the humans, was that they weren't good at any one thing. While the Irkens were masters of warfare, the Vortians the masters of science, the Meekrob masters of art, the human race... had nothing. Their science was solid, but hardly mind blowing. Their art was good, but nothing special. Their war strategies were effective, but not unbeatable.

They seemed to enjoy standing out on their own, and yet, they craved company so deeply they'd give themselves to just one person for all their life.

No wonder the Tallest laughed so often when he tried to explain the humans to them. They seemed like such a baffling race of beings, how they had possibly survived without specialising in one area just... amazed Zim. Truly it did.

Suddenly, there was a scream and, smashing through the floor, was Gir. The annoying little robot picked himself up under Zim's watch, his mouth splattered with chocolate. He seemed to pause before waving at his master. "HI!"

"Hello Gir," Zim replied bitterly, annoyed that his little moment of peace had been broken, but since when did he ever get any peace?

The robot looked from side to side before bouncing over and jumping to sit on Zim's lap, "Where is the scary gurl?"

"She's not here," Zim replied coldly, his heart doing that weird squeezy thing again. He did not push Gir off him however, sometimes the robot was good to talk at, not talk too, but talk at. Just an ear to shout and rant into, one that would not turn away or ignore him. "We... fell out, as I believe the humans put it."

"Aww, she was nice," Gir commented simply, crossing his legs, "Why'd ya fall out?"

"She accused Zim of being a friend," The irken raised a fist, "Then she demanded I change! Foolish human, Zim is perfect! He needs no friends or change!"

"But Dib's your friend," Gir commented as his large eyes blinked, "Gazzy should be your friend too!"

"DIB IS THE ENEMY!" The irken shouted back at his robot, "And Gaz is NOT my friend!"

"But you played with her!" Gir grinned, "With the fun shooty game KERBLAMO!"

"That was serious training, Gir!" Zim growled, "Not playing!"

"But you liked it so much!" He giggled a little and poked Zim in the belly, "You liked it sooooo muuuuuch."

"I didn't like it," Zim replied, hotly dening Gir's all too hard-hitting accusation, even as his heart squeezed again. He was going to have to scan himself for any medical issues as soon as he was done talking with his robot. "She was a tutor, a tool to use, nothing more."

Gir paused and then smiled, "But you went on a date! You must like her!"

"... what is this 'date'?" Zim asked simply, an antennae raising slowly.

The robot giggled and waved his arms, "I saw it on tee vee! A date is where a human takes another human to eat disgusting food! And then they KISS! And then they're in loooove."

"Love?" Zim almost spat out the word, "Love is a disgusting concept! Utterly useless to an irken soldier such as myself! Why would I ever be in love with Gaz?"

"I never said you are!" Gir stated quickly, as if calling out Zim's little slip.

Zim ignored him and continued ranting. "Zim cannot feel love! His mighty PAK stops him from feeling such emotions! Only defects feel silly things like love, Zim only loves himself!"

"Isn't that feeling love?" Gir questioned as he began wiping the chocolate off his mouth with his doggie suit.

"Zim cannot and will not change! Not for Gaz, not for anyone!" He leaped up, causing Gir to fall from his lap and onto the floor with a loud clang.

"But mastah has changed before!" Gir called out again from the floor, almost as if he was acting as the little voice of common sense in Zim's mind.

"What? When?" It seemed the irken invader had finally decided to listen to the robot and he turned his passion red eyes onto him. "Tell Zim."

"Mastah was a fightery person, then foody person, then a fightery person again!" Gir counted on his limbs for a second before looking up and grinning, "Dats three changes!"

Zim looked at him blankly, his mouth dropping open in shock. He... he was right. Gir was actually right about something for once. He _had_ changed before, three times even.

The irken seemed to have trouble taking all this in, he stuttered and stumbled back, the realisation of this hitting him so hard that he was almost winded. He could feel his heart beating fast and yet squeezing tight, as if he was forcing blood around his small body faster than he truly wanted too.

Finally, he sat down, leaning back against a machine as Gir seemed to play about with his suit. "... Zim... can change..." He slowly clenched a fist as a new kind of determination took over him. "Zim can change! And I can prove to Gaz I can change!" He grinned maniacally and shot up, raising his fist into the air and shouting, "ZIM WILL CHANGE!"

* * *

_SO YEAH, that was pretty awesome AMMARITE. I really liked writing the end with Gir in this, I liked putting him in that Shakespearian role of 'the wise fool'._

_And before some of you phone in and say 'but Zim's personality didn't change, just his job!' don't worry, that's all taken into account and is all part of the plot. I also wanted to make sure that Zim doesn't act too OOC... I want him to obviously progress, however I want to keep that insane 'throw himself into it' kind of attitude Zim has. Either way he won't be emoing about his new 'change', he'll be going at it WITH FISTS FLYING AND... STUFF HAPPENING._

_There are NO REFERENCES OR HOMAGES IN THIS CHAPTER GASPO._

_So yes, I hope you enjoyed reading! Review, tell me what you liked and didn't like and what you want more off! Remember guys, if you say 'more piggies' I'll put in more piggies._

_Laters!_


	8. Zim the Chameleon

_So hi guys, I finished this chapter in an English lecture that I wasn't really listening too. What? I'm smart, I can afford to not listen to someone talk about Anti-Jacobian text distributed about in 1800's era France._

_Also, I was gone for so long thanks to mega-stress, and I may also be gone again soon thanks to more mega-stress. My life hates me... a lot. _

_But I love writing. It's one of the few things that is still going right in my life right now and I hope you guys enjoy reading._

_Oh, I forgot to mention. Last chapter's experiment was to see if you found Zim's change too OOC or not. This chapter has no experiment, it is a chapter purely for chaptering's sake._

* * *

Gaz had spent the next two days feeling terrible. She had made a friend, finally, someone whom she'd felt connected with. Someone who she could spend time with without wanting to punch their lights out. Someone who liked computer games and morbid humour and... she'd ruined it.

Why had she demanded Zim change? Why couldn't she just let their friendship be? No, not Gaz. She had to go and demand more of a perfectly good thing.

She should have known she was too much of a bitch to have friends.

It didn't help that Zim seemed to have vanished utterly. Had she upset him so bad that he didn't even want to come to school? No, knowing Zim he had thrown himself into some useless idea to take over the world. She didn't know why he tried, he never succeeded. Either his ideas were so terrible that they never worked or Dib stopped him with little effort.

She suspected that inside, Dib knew that Zim was never going to win and not in that 'I'll stop him!' way, more like in that 'Zim could never win even if I didn't stop him' kind of way. Although sometimes she had to wonder after all, Dib threw himself into his saviour of earth role with the same energy he did as a child.

Maybe they were just as blind as the other... no wonder neither ever seemed to win.

Dib still had yet to gain any real evidence of Zim's existence other than Tak's ship, which still sat useless in their garage.

Speaking of Dib, he had been acting weirdly. He had gone quiet and, while the silence was nice, it was worrying. Dib only went silent when he was plotting something big, like the time he tried to siege Zim's home.

Needless to say it'd ended badly. It ALWAYS ended badly.

Gaz sighed and kicked a can out of her way, the sounds of Gnar Kill still screaming in her ears. The world again was blotted out, because she had been given a strong, sharp lesson in what happened when she tried to reach out. It was better just to stay in her own little world where nothing and no one could get to her.

She pushed her hands deeper into the front pocket of her hoody, her eyes narrowing down onto the pavement in front of her.

Zim... why wouldn't the stupid little alien leave her mind? What the hell was it about him that had kept his name shooting across her thoughts for two days straight?

Even more so, why was it that she missed him? She had found herself wanting to hear his annoying little voice at lunch or feel his stupid punching attempts in their mock-fights. He was so big headed and so self centred and yet, in the last few days of their hanging out she'd seen... something inside him.

Like a sun hiding behind clouds, Zim's inner core, that vulnerable side to him that was coated under lays of mislaid confidence, denial and single mindedness. She'd seen glimpses of someone who was smart, someone who liked company, someone who was, dare she say it, _fun _to be around.

It almost worried her how close she felt she and the little green annoyance had gotten over the week.

But whatever, not that it mattered anymore. It was all over with and even if she tried, she knew Dib would be onto them faster than she could blink. He was creepy that way.

The sun shone down on her, but it was cold. There was a chill running on the wind, causing her to keep her black hoody up over her head. She had chosen black pants to go with her boots and under her hoody was a purple long sleeved top. It was odd, on the outside she felt warm, on the inside, cold. She brushed some hair from her eyes, the annoying thing about always having your hood up was how your hair always fell in front of your face.

She wondered what Zim felt. Was he really upset? Or was he just angry with her? Was his next stupid invention going to be something along the lines of making people hate one another over stupid mistakes?

Probably. That or something just plain annoying like when he fired Dib up into space and made him watch cheesy movies with Gir and Minimoose. Sometimes Zim didn't seem to want to destroy the world, just lash out at it and teach it a lesson. She had to admit, sometimes she felt very much the same.

Suddenly, there was a sharp poke in the back of her head.

The girl almost jumped, so caught up in her thoughts and so deaf to the world that she had barely noticed anyone coming near her. However, she leapt around, eyes blazing to see who dared disturb her loneliness.

It was... Zim?

"Behold, Gaz beast!" Zim cried out, throwing his hands into the air, "I have proven you wrong and changed!"

Yeah, changed he had. He was wearing black eyeliner for one, as well as having changed his wig so it fell over one eye in a ridiculous swoosh. He was wearing a long black and white striped shirt that fell over his still gloved claws, but also a black t-shirt over it with 'Can't sleep, penguins will eat me' written on it. He also had black baggy cargo pants with a chain on each side. She guessed he was also wearing boots she couldn't tell, the pants fell right over them.

Zim grinned, "HA, I see you are speechless at the ingenious changing skills of Zim!"

Oh Gaz was speechless alright, her eyes bugged at the... insane sight of the invader. She knew Zim was dumb but... wow. Wow.

... wow.

She slowly felt her lips turn upwards and a sort of strangled laugh leapt from her. She clasped a hand over her mouth, trying to stop the way too unnatural sound from escaping her, but there was another, then another. The sound of Gaz's laughter was so light and airy, so girlish so... _not Gaz._

She finally took her hand away from her mouth, the laughter just exploding out of her at this point. Her whole body shook and she had to fall back against a nearby brick wall to support herself as she laughed, tears forming and one even running down her face.

She coughed and tried to look back at Zim, only to catch him standing there with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

Gaz exploded in laughter again, sliding down the wall and sitting there, laughing like a maniac at the irken soldier.

Zim was utterly confused. Gaz never laughed, ever. And to see her laugh so much was both fascinating and terrifying. Yet the sound of her laughter was not altogether unpleasant, actually, it was light and sweet.

"Why do you laugh, Gaz-human?" Zim replied with a light growl. Even if Gaz's laughter was nice on the antennae, he still hated being laughed at.

"Because," Gaz finally managed to breathe out, a big stupid grin still across her face. "You look like a complete idiot!" She burst out laughing again.

"I do not look like an idiot!" Zim quickly shouted, clenching a fist, "I observed the stink-children within your age group and I found this was a suitable alternative dress style for your pathetic teenage peers!"

"Yeah, and they look like idiots too," Gaz had finally gotten her laughter under control, forcing it down and wishing she had a camera to take pictures with. This was so utterly priceless.

"But..." Zim looked down to his clothes and back up, "Zim changed! He adapted! He proved Gaz wrong!"

"A change of shirt is not a real change," The teenager replied, "You need to change on the inside, Zim."

"How can Zim change his insides? I need all my organs to live!" The irken replied with a frown, wondering why Gaz was talking about his insides.

"No I mean..." Gaz paused, finally realising what Zim was trying to do. While this was a pretty epic failure of an attempt to prove her wrong, a part of her realised that he was, for once, honestly trying to do something to get her to be his friend.

Zim was trying to change... for her. It was such a strange moment of realisation that it robbed her of any laughter left within her. Why was Zim doing this? Why her? What was it about her that he seemed so obsessed with?

She felt hugely conflicted. Her mind told her what happened last time they had gotten close, how disastrous that had been... but something a little deeper, a little warmer inside her told Gaz to give Zim a chance.

If he wanted to change then she should help him. Especially if he wanted to change for her.

"Look, Zim... you look like an emo dork," She paused, looking him up and down, "... but if you really want to change, I'll help you. Think of it as an extension of your training."

"VICTORY!" Zim threw his arms up and grinned before letting his grin fall and replacing it with a suspicious frown. "But you're not getting my organs."

"I don't want your organs." She snickered and turned. "Come on. We're going to the mall."

* * *

_So yes! The plot is back at a roaring pace, but, where is Dibbers? What is he subtly planning? We do not know. No seriously, I've no idea what Dib is going to do yet... but I want it to be amazing. And spectacular. And very very stupid. _

_REFERENCES. Gnar Kill - They're a very stupid band formed by the members of CKY and Jackass. _

_'Zim made Dib watch cheesy movies with only Gir and Minimoose as companions' - A reference to the always glorious MST3k. And if you don't know what that is, you're either too young or not geeky enough._

_Zim's costume is also my own little dig at the IZ fandom trend to make Zim emo-tised when he tries to become all mature. Just say no kids, just say no. _

_Next chapter has some nice fluffy Gaz-Zim goodness! ALSO DIB PLOTTING! It's gonna be a big chapter I think. _

_Anyways, read, review, tell me your epic opinions and what you'd like in future chapters! Laters kids!_


	9. Time for a Makeover!

_UPDATE TIME! First of all, I'd like to thank all you guys for getting this story past 100 reviews! Each and every one of you are well appreciated, trust me, and if I could I'd send all of you thank you cookies for being such a supportive and helpful lot. _

_Now, on with the chapter I think. There's no experiment this week, but that's because I'm building up some things for a later experiment. Just enjoy for now!_

* * *

The mall was never the nicest place in the world. It was a large, loud place and while the architecture wasn't terrible it was clear that the economic climate had hit it hard. There were a number of closed shops, boarded up windows and the place itself had a run down, dirty sort of feel.

But it was the only good mall for miles around. The only other one was run by an insane security guard who unleashed zombies on people who didn't obey his insane rules. It had been fun to kick zombie butt on the weekends but the charm grew thin when Gaz had realised that the zombies posed about as much a threat as Jack Spicer did in last years parent-child robot battle tournament at school.

"See!" Zim pointed to what at first seemed like a bunch of zombies but on further inspection turned out to be a group of mallrats, all dressed almost exactly like Zim. "See how they dress? With this outfit I would clearly be considered 'cool' by you stink-pigs."

"No, you'd be like them," Gaz replied with a disapproving nod at the group. "You're nothing like them, so why bother acting like them?"

Zim was still dressed in the ridiculous outfit but at least Gaz had wiped away the makeup because she just couldn't look at him without bursting into a fit of giggles.

They walked on, Zim almost falling over his baggy pants for the thousandth time before Gaz caught him and held him up. "Ugh, okay, we're getting you some new pants first."

"I agree, these pants are awful, no wonder you humans fail so much when your dress codes are not uniform and ridged." The irken commented as they made their way towards a small clothes shop called Thunderegg.

Gaz raised an eyebrow. "You don't have fashions on your planet?"

"Of course not!" Zim replied with a small smirk. "We dress according to our stations in life. I dress as an invader, others will dress as advisors or workers." He looked to a pair of jeans, poked them and put a tongue. "What is the point of this?"

"To be yourself." Gaz replied simply and raising an eyebrow. She found it so hard to imagine millions, no, billions of irkens all looking and acting and speaking the same. And yet Zim was so... unique. He wasn't like anyone else she knew, hell, even when Tak and Skoodge had been here for a while he had seemed so unlike them.

Tak had been so dedicated to proving her Tallest she was worthy and Skoodge seemed to do the same, albeit less fanatically. Arguably Zim too shared this obsession but he so often talked about _himself_ being a ruler, _himself_ conquering earth. Not for his Tallest but for his own gratification and success.

She wondered if he even realised how individual he really was, or if the other irkens around him also realised this.

Zim pulled a red and black striped shirt from a shelf and held it up. "I like this one the most."

"... but it's just like your old top," Gaz questioned simply. "Why not get something new?"

"Why not stick with what works?" Zim answered back with an shrug. He really didn't see the point of changing his clothes so dramatically, it's not like it made any difference to himself or his personality.

"Because you asked me to help you change." The taller girl replied with a frown. "If you don't change your image, you can't change on the inside. How you look should reflect who you really are."

Zim didn't reply, instead he threw the shirt back and sort of pouted, even though Gaz was sure he was trying to sulk. She rolled her eyes. "Wait here, let me find some things."

She really didn't know what to pick out for him, but it would be something less... strict. Something a little more free flowing and relaxed, casual even. Zim's slightly baggy shirt and tight blank pants were hardly the most fashionable thing ever. When they were younger, Gaz had wondered if the slightly oversized shirt was part of his uniform. Now she was realising that perhaps they simply didn't have one in his size.

Oh sure, she knew irkens as a whole weren't the tallest of races, in fact, from what she'd learned from Dib's constant chatter, humanity may actually be amongst the tallest aliens in the universe.

Which of course made finding clothes for Zim that fit all that harder. She was forced to venture into the children's clothes section before finally finding some things that Zim may look good in.

"What are these?" Zim questioned as he held the small pile of clothes out in front of him. "They look so...uncoordinated."

"They're your new style." Gaz replied with a fold of her arms. "Go and put them on."

"Right now?" the small alien looked rather shocked. "Everyone will through my amazing disguise if I take it off!"

Gaz face palmed. "Go to the changing room, Zim. Change in the changing room."

"Changing rooms?" He questioned suddenly. "And this will change what? My skin? My organs?"

The teeanger now double face palmed. "Oh my god, how does my brother think you're a threat?"

"I am a threat!" Zim replied with the shake of a fist before marching off towards the changing rooms. "I'll prove to you how... threat-y I can be!"

"It's 'threatening!'" Gaz called back before shaking her head and sitting down next to the window of the shop.

That irken was an utter moron. How had he survived for so long without getting his head blown off? She could understand about his cover, she'd seen him reveal himself in public enough times to know that no one really cared if he was an alien or not. But seriously, he was the type of person to test how strong a car was by driving it into a wall.

And yet, she found herself smiling. She found his stupidity amusing, rather than annoying. She found his strange innocence about the world entertaining instead of weary. Inside she knew she was glad to be back with him, hanging out and helping him try and be a more normal person, even if that task was a fools errand.

She wondered how long they would last this time. A few weeks? A few days? She wanted to be hopeful, but her experiences told her to be cynical.

"Well?" Zim's voice cut her out of her thoughts and she snapped her head back.

Zim looked... good. It was so shocking that she honestly was lost for words. He wore a simple red t-shirt over a black long sleeved shirt with tan-brown cargo pants that were baggy, but fitting. He still had his boots on, but also his gloves and he'd somehow styled his hair back into it's quiff shape.

For a second, a scene flashed in her mind. Zim in the same clothes but... taller. Taller than her. A slim but strong body, that same confident smile combined with maturing looks. No longer the tiny and childish but a confident, mature and driven.

A second's vision of the potential of who Zim could become.

He seemed to turn his eyes from her and his face... deepened? She couldn't tell, but it did seem her staring was making him uneasy. He folded his arms and mumbled. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

"Shuddup." Gaz replied, standing up and looking to him, her vision disappearing but not forgotten. "You look fine."

"Do I look normal?" He asked with a genuine curiosity.

"Yes. Very." She smirked. "Very... normal."

"SUCCESS!" He threw his arms into the air. "Victory for Zim!"

"... right." She paused and pointed to his hand. "You should take your gloves off though. They don't suit the rest of the outfit."

"My gloves are for sanitary reasons," the irken replied suddenly, drawing his hands to his chest. "I don't wish to catch any of your filthy earth germs."

"...you've been here three years," Gaz replied slowly. "You're not going to catch anything."

"How do you know?" Zim asked suspiciously. "Besides. I do not wish to make any sort of... skin contact with you meat beings."

A tiny part of Gaz felt oddly hurt by that comment, as if it was made directly at her. And yet she knew it was just part of Zim's many quirks. She brushed it away, inwardly guessing that she could not change all of him in one day. Besides, she had time to keep working on him after all.

And yet unknown to her, time was quickly running thin. Back in Gaz's home, Dib sat quietly at his computer, his eyes flicking over a very long looking document. He was in fact reading the irken rules of war, which he'd read before but this time he was looking for something rather specific.

A small line that could potentially destroy Zim forever.

"Where are you..." He mumbled softly to the screen, his eyes starting to burn from looking to long at the artificial light. Suddenly however, they widened and he whispered to himself, "No invader shall fraternise with the enemy under any circumstances. Such action will result in serious punishment."

Dib grinned viciously and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Gotcha, space-boy."

* * *

_I know I promised Dibby-plotting this week and I know the ending was terrible for Dibby-plotting, but more will be done on it next chapter. Unfortunately I couldn't stick to my word limit and keep all the stuff I wanted to keep in the chapter. Besides, that only means MOAR Dibby-plotting next update!_

_References: 'Jack Spicer' - that awesome guy from Shaolin Showdown :D Lovable but completely useless._  
_'mallrats' - an excellent Kevin Smith film._  
_'Thunderegg' - a great little clothes shop in the city nearest to me._

_Anyways, that's all for now. You guys keep rocking, reviewing, readin, feedbackin and being awesomesauce. Till next time, PEACE!_


	10. Dib's Epic Revenge

_FINALLY. AN UPDATE. Yes it's about time I updated. Weirdly, it wasn't that I was busy, actually, it's that I had perhaps TOO much time on my hands. When I have no schedule, I get lazy and it's VERY important when writing to stick to a struck writing schedule. This is what happens when you go off that schedule, things get put back and updates are missed. _

_Anyway, a lot of it actually had to do with me not liking the direction of Dib in this chapter. I hate following writing trends and 'jealous brother Dib' is a huge trope in ZAGR fics, but honestly, there's very little other way to write his character in these stories. _

_I also just didn't like how this chapter turned out a whole, but whatever, I finally got it in. Now to work on the other stories I've been neglecting. ANYWAY, read and enjoy guys!_

* * *

Zim came walking into the home with all the arrogance of someone who thought the world was set on a plate for them and in many ways, it was. His life was awesome right now, he was friends with Gaz again, he had a new uniform to wear, he was being trained to kick the Dib-stinks ass and Gir hadn't even ruined any of his new plans lately. Well, maybe because he hadn't actually made any new plans recently, he'd been too busy obsessing over the idea of getting Gaz back.

Weird how he threw away everything just to focus on the possibility of getting her back into his life... he would really didn't want to question that right now.

However, as he walked in his eyes landed on a rather unwelcome figure sitting on his couch and with a very vicious and confident looking grin on his face.

Dib. "Wow Zim, nice clothes." He chuckled as he stood up, putting a hand to his chin. "Very... normal, weirdly enough."

"OUT!" Zim commanded standing aside and pointing to the door. He didn't care why his enemy was here but after such a nice day, he was in no mood to put up with Dib's annoying... face. Or voice. Or any part of him actually.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here?" Dib replied again, folding his arms and smiling in a rather cocky manner.

"NO." The irken shouted back, storming towards him and grabbing his arm. "OUT. NOW."

"But I set up a whole thing!" Dib whined as the irken began dragging him from the couch and towards the door. "With a DVD and everything!"

"Don't care." Zim barked as he went to throw Dib outside, however, Dib managed to pull himself away at the last moment.

"Computer!" He commanded loudly, "Play the DVD!"

"Sure." The computer within the home seemed to shrug and the screen flickered into life. A picture of Gaz and Zim standing together appeared on the screen. Zim paused, looking on with wide eyes. He was smiling, so was she... and he suddenly found himself transfixed by her image. Her smile, why did it seem now he was noticing it properly? It filled him with a kind of joy he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be feeling.

The image changed however, showing a new photo. In this they were walking, side by side. There was a sudden, painful realisation of how much taller she was than him. He was tiny beside her, like a child.

He had always thought of himself as superior to Gaz, obviously, because he was an Irken Elite. A jealousy riled up in him of how much taller Dib was. Dib could stand beside her like an equal, no, _taller_ than her. Zim would always just seem... small in comparison.

"What is this?" The irken demanded suddenly as more pictures continued to flash along, showing them talking, laughing, eating together.

"This is you and my sister, being pals, hanging out," Dib smiled viciously as he walked slowly behind Zim. "You guys look nice together, really... such a _shame_ that it's against the ruurrus, huh?"

"Rules? What rules?" Zim demanded suddenly, turning and glaring at Dib.

"You don't know? How about we just let your Tallest explain." The human chuckled almost evilly before pointing upwards. "Computer! Contact the Tallest!"

"Alright," The computer seemed to sigh before the screen changed to show static and the sound of a call being made.

"Why does my computer take orders from a HUMAN?" Zim screeched in annoyance as the pictures vanished and a short ringing sound was heard.

"Zim? Hello? What is it, we're very busy you know." The irken whipped his head back around to see his leaders.

Tallest Red and Purple, dressed in their usual robes and looking rather annoyed that someone had just randomly called them. Again, like Zim, they hadn't changed a bit since Zim's arrival on earth. Not an inch taller or shorter, just... the same, held in the strange static that all irkens seemed to be a part off.

"My Tallest!" Zim quickly tried to cover, "This is a mistake I assure you, this annoying HUMAN just barged in here and-"

"HEY." Purple suddenly interrupted. "... what the heck are you wearing?"

"Yeah, what are those?" Red leaned forward to get a better look.

"These are my new clothes, to better fit in." Zim replied with a small smile.

"Hey! Creepy irken leader dudes!" Dib shoved the smaller irken to one side and quickly rushed at the screen, tapping some buttons on the side of it. "Check out these photos I'm sending you!"

"Creepy?" Red chuckled to himself. "Says the weird big headed human boy."

"Yeah." Purple replied, pointing a long, bony finger at Dib. "Watch who you're calling creepy, big head."

"My head is not big!" Dib snapped back before shaking off the insult. "Just, look at the photos."

"Fine, fine." The irken leaders quickly accepted the files and began looking through them. Their eyes narrowed, and suddenly Zim felt rather worried. It was always bad when the Tallest narrowed their eyes.

"... Zim, what is this?" Red asked suddenly, and with the sort of commanding tone that reminded the small invader that he wasn't just a leader by height.

The invader began fidgeting. "Erm, well, you see-"

"Are you laughing? They're laughing! Look at this!" Purple cut in, pointing a finger to his screen.

"My Tallest, Gaz Membrane is the strongest warrior I could find to help train me in ways to defeat the horrible DIB-stink." Zim quickly gushed. "You have to understand it was for the good of the mission."

"No, no, no." Red shook his head. "Zim. The rules of engagement explicitly ban any friendly interactions with the enemy."

"Yeah! Especially girly enemies!" Purple commented quickly. "Besides, you don't look like you're training here, you're laughing and smiling and being all... not training."

"What she's going to train you in anyway?" Red demanded quickly. "Fighting? Being more human? What?" Before Zim could even defend himself Red quickly pressed on. "You're a highly trained irken warrior, you shouldn't need any training."

"Yeah!" Purple chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "Especially not from some barely evolved ape-people."

Zim just stammered, the only people in the universe who could shatter his astronomical confidence were his leaders. "I... I..."

"That's it, I've had it." Red threw up his arms and stood up out his chair, his eyes blazing. "You've let us down for the last time, Zim."

"First you cause Operation Impending Doom One to fail. Then you almost ruin Operation Impending Doom Two. Then you spend forever completing the simple task of world domination over a NONE space fairing race," Purple commented, counting each one off on his fingers.

"And now you're mingling and making friends with the enemy! And wearing stupid earth fashions!" Red finished for his fellow leader, pointing to Zim and growling. "You're... FIRED!"

"Wha-what?" Zim stammered quickly, "Fired?"

"FIRED. As in let go. As in we're banishing you to that planet, whatever planet it is, maybe if you ever take it over we'll rethink your banishment but considering it's been FIVE YEARS and you STILL haven't gotten THAT right, I doubt we ever will!"

"Yeah!" Purple commented quickly. "Cut the transmission, I want curly fries."

The transmission vanished and Dib stood behind the tiny invader with a wide grin on his face. "That went better than I could have imagined! BANISHED! HA!"

"SHUT UP DIB-STINK!" Zim commanded, spinning around and pointing a clawed finger at him. "SHUT UP!"

"Oh man, look at you." Dib continued taunting, utterly fearless of the tiny alien. "Banished for being a complete screw up, I mean, I just thought you'd get shouted at or fined or something but banishment? WOW!"

"GET OUT! GET OUT GET OUT GET. OOOUT!" Zim threw his fists at Dib, hitting him hard in the stomach and continuing to pelt him but Dib just staggered back and, with a quick growl, shoved him away.

Zim felt to the floor, and in that moment, he realised just how far behind Dib he really was in terms of strength. Dib stood over him, no, he stood _on_ him, one foot resting heavily on the tiny irken's chest.

The human leaned over and chuckled down at him. "Look at you. Just look at you, Zim. You're pathetic. I'm taller than you, stronger than you and even when you stoop to the lowest of the low and try and recruit my sister to your side. You epic fail, Zim."

He took his foot off Zim and frowned down at him before turning and heading out the door. "Don't ever go near my sister again, got it? Or I'll do even _worse_ next time."

* * *

_So yes, we end on a typical note there with Zim being beaten down and Dib being all victorious... for once. Or is he? Zim never lays down for anyone, and I doubt he will do over this! _

_Anyway, REFERENCES._

_'The rurruus' - Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, or more accurately, Scanty and Kneesocks and their obsession with the rurruus. Dib likes his anime it seems. _

_That's it I'm afraid, ahh well. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I know it's bad but stick with me, I have WAY better chapters to make up for this. Read, tell me what you like and dislike and all that! Till next time guys!_


	11. Storm Clouds Break

_I AM NOT DEAD. Just saying. Sorry this update took forever, I know, I know, I promised a chapter every 2 weeks but, as I said, the holidays got here and well... things got real. REALLY REAL. Basically an awful lot of stuff suddenly took up my time and I found myself being WHISKED away to merry old America where I am free to eat burgers and stuff. _

_Anyway, I finally sat down and hammered out this chapter, which has at least 500 words more than a usual chapter, just cos I wanted to make it up to you guys. _

_Have fun reading! Sorry it took so long!_

* * *

Zim was brooding. He sat deep in the bowels of his lab, a terrible frown on his face and his eyes looking forward. He had never hated Dib so much in all his life, ever. He hated Dib more than he could possibly speak in words. He had spent the last two hours sitting there, one hand clenched into a tight fist, the other propping up his head as he rested on a great throne-like chair in front of his massive computer screen.

Thousands of ideas were going through his mind, an awful lot of them involving knives and Dib's big stupid head flying from his shoulders.

How... COULD he. How could he get him FIRED from his job? Dib had been the cause of every major disappointment and loss in his life and now he had taken the very thing that had defined him as a person.

And for what? Because he had become friends with Gaz? Because he was jealous of Zim's mighty fighting powers? Because he was a big headed JERK who liked doing nothing but tormenting him?

Probably all of those actually.

He huffed and continued growling to himself, even as Gir came tumbling down into the room, laughing as he randomly bumped into things. He wasn't sad about being fired, just angry about it. And more angry at Dib for finding him out than for actually being punished. He could get his job back, that wasn't the problem, the problem was that Dib had dealt a giant blow to him which would take him ages to recover from.

Justice had to be served.

Gir went stumbling past his vision like some drunk little robot and Zim growled. "GIR! Get out of here! I am BROODING."

"Bawww, Mastah! Why you so upset?" Gir replied like a child and wandered over to sit in front of him, tongue hanging out of mouth.

"Did you not SEE the mighty ZIM get fired from his mighty mission because of Dib being a MIGHTY PAIN IN THE BUTT?"

Gir gasped. "Master got fired? OH NO! NOOO! NOOOOOOO!"

Zim was about to thank the robot for his concern, but paused. "... do you even know what that means?"

"Not a clue!" Gir giggled before rocking back and forth. "But this means it's okay to have Gazzy 'round, right?"

"No Gir, it doesn't." Zim growled, feeling a slight pain at the mention of Gaz's name. This was all because of her, yet, he felt no anger towards her. It was her idiot sibling who couldn't stand the idea of them being friends.

What did he think he was going to do anyway? Turn her to the irken side? Make her betray earth? He was pretty sure that Gaz had no interest in doing either, she could barely summon the interest to listen to most of his rantings, never mind actively take part in the wanton destruction of humanity.

"I have to think of a way to get back at the Dib-stink, I cannot let this injustice go unpunished!" He switched hands to lean on, trying to see if leaning to the left produced more diabolical ideas for him to punish Dib with.

It didn't. In fact, if anything, it only made him think about how whenever Gaz was tired, she always seemed to let her head fall to the left, rather than the right. He felt his rage lesson at the very thought of Gaz, whatever that meant he didn't know. He just wished she was here to help him plot horrible revenge on her brother.

Maybe that was it, maybe he should call her and tell her his troubles, but would she even listen? Probably not, after all, it wasn't like she had any real vested interest in him. She had wanted him to change, to become something he couldn't be.

"Call Gazzy." Gir suddenly announced as if he had spooky mind reading powers. "She'll help kung fu kick Dibby through a window HI-YA!"

"No, Gir, I'm not calling Gaz on this. I am an irken soldier, I must deal with this like all good irken soldiers." Zim commanded back with a frown. "And that means no outside help."

"But you're not a soldier anymores." Gir pointed out as he jumped to sit on Zim's lap. "You got fiiired, remember?"

Zim paused for a moment, blinking before he suddenly jumped up in surprise. So shocked was he by this lightning bolt of inspiration that he was almost made breathless. It was brilliant, it was astounding, it was... GENIUS. "GIR! You little obi-wan!" He grabbed the robot from the floor, as he had been sent flying off Zim's lap when he'd jumped up. "You've got it!"

Gir just cheered in joy, happy to see that his master was no longer brooding like some angst ridden sparkly vampire. "I got it, I got it! Waddi get?"

"I don't _have_ to fight Dib like an irken soldier," He grinned viciously, "Because the rules of an irken soldier no longer _apply_ to me." He dropped Gir onto the floor with an unceremonious clang.

Zim now seemed to be pacing up and down in a manner befitting a Bond villain, cackling and tapping his fingers together, a dark look stretching across his green skin. "Oh this is perfect, now I can show Gaz how much changing I can do AND kick Dib's pasty butt across town."

As Gir wandered off to make more mischief, Zim rushed to his computer and began hammering away on equations, designs, blueprints and perhaps most worryingly, genetic coding.

The rain was coming, or rather, a storm. According to the weather it was going to be a bad one too, a full lightning and thunder kind of storm. It made you want to stay inside and find a nice blanket to wrap around you as you watched the rain pelt the windows and the wind rattle the house.

Gaz however, was worried. She had heard nothing from Zim all day, which was odd as by now he should have been bugging her about coming over and training with him. Or at least playing the new game releases of the summer, which weren't many to be honest.

Her laptop sat on her lap and she looked again at her IM friend list for the twentieth time, which only had about six people on it anyway, frowning again. Why wasn't Zim on? Why wasn't he sending her constant links to 'pathetic hamburger wanting cats' that weren't even that funny?

She had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with how snarky and smug Dib was acting. He'd come home grinning and refused to answer why, even after she'd threatened to beat him with a bat if he didn't stop acting like he'd won the lottery.

Gaz had a horrible feeling that it had something to do with Zim... but what? Surely whatever he'd done to the green alien this time couldn't be that bad... could it?

The heavy pattering of rain at her window drew the girl's attention. She imagined for a second what that must sound like to Zim, to know that rain, possibly even death was coming from the sky's and battering his home.

He probably wasn't that poetic about it.

"It's just rain, Gaz." Dib's voice suddenly cut through over the pitter-patter. "It's not going to break through the window and get you."

The smugness in his voice was almost insufferable. "Shut up." She turned her head to look at her brother, who was leaning on the bannister at the top of the stairs with a grin that would make the Cheshire Cat sue for copyright. "I was thinking, that's all."

"What about?" Dib pressed, as if he'd forgotten the 'leave Gaz alone' rule that she'd established years ago.

"Nothing, never you mind." She waved a hand at him, as if dismissing him. "Just go away."

"Was it about Zim?" The words instantly made her blood run cold.

"What have you done to him?" She spoke too fast and she knew it. She had instantly betrayed the fact that she was not only thinking about him but worrying about him too. Dammit, why was she acting this way? Zim could take care of himself, she knew that... and yet Dib's smile said different.

Her brother chuckled, looking up and out the window himself. "Oh, nothing much. Nothing he didn't deserve."

She shut her laptop and put it to one side, slowly getting up from the couch like a lion that had been rudely awakened. Even Dib moved back from the bannister a little at this action. It seemed even when he was being cocky, he knew not to push his little sister too far.

"Dib, tell me what you did to him before I come up there and brake your nose." Gaz demanded, her eyes not even landing on him. Rather, her fists clenched slowly, in silent warning.

"I had him fired." Dib replied quickly, a frown finally wiping the grin from his face. "I was not going to let him try to corrupt you and get away with it!"

"... corrupt me?" Her amber eyes, now filled with an inner flame, shot up to him. "What are you talking about?"

"I know you've been hanging out with him, buying him clothes, going to his house!" The boy accused suddenly, "I never should have taken that week off! He's corrupting you and turning you to his evil cause! Well I made sure he no longer has a cause to be evil for!"

"WHAT?" Her voice shook the home more than the howling wind. "You had him fired from being an invader because he was HANGING OUT WITH ME?" Gaz was so angry that she didn't know what to do with herself. She wanted to run up there and beat the snot out of her brother for his complete, interfering idiocy, and yet she was also anxious. She was anxious about how Zim was taking this.

That mission meant everything to him and now it was gone, not to mention being taken by his worst enemy, the blow... it must have been devastating to him.

Suddenly within her, she felt something... pull, like there was a string attached from her to the tiny alien and she obeyed it instantly, as if she had no choice but to obey. She stormed over to the coat rack, grabbing her coat from the wall and pulling it on.

"Wait, Gaz, aren't you going to kick my ass?" Dib replied, as if sensing that the natural order of things had been changed.

"Later." Gaz responded in a voice dripping with rage. "I'm going to see if Zim is okay."

Dib seemed absolutely flabbergasted. "You can't go back to him! He's the ENEMY!" He came running down the stairs, his arms out in an attempt to stop her. "You're supposed to thank me for saving-OW!"

Gaz had held out a fist and Dib had gone running right into it. As he fell back to the couch, clutching his mouth Gaz shot him a death-glare that would make most small animals go fleeing. "Follow me and I'll make you wish you'd never got over that cold." And with that, Dib watched helplessly as Gaz walked out of the house and into the thunderstorm.

* * *

_BLAGHLA. So here it is, the epic chapter that followed the last! I kind of liked writing Zim in this one, it was nice to write something about Zim being fired where he doesn't go into emo mope mode and instead is just focused on getting his sweet revenge on Dib. Tis nice. _

_References! _

_'little obi-wan' - this is something the lovely blueflower1594 said in a review for chapter 7, I liked it so much I promised I'd put it in somewhere. _

_Anyways, that's all for now folks, read and tell me what you liked and didn't like and hopefully I'll update faster next time! Bye for now kids!_


	12. Ignoring The Signs

_HI GUYS. MISS ME? Well I won't lie to you, my loyal fans who haven't given up on me for dead and will still read this. I got lazy, but worse, I got into a block. I didn't write anything for about 30 days, seriously. Look at the first half of this chapter, with Gaz, THAT IS ME WRITING WITH A BLOCK. See how horrible it is? I kept it in anyway because I needed an opening but yeah, it's horrible. _

_Anyway I was gonna make this a huge chapter to make it up but... my evilness took over. You'll see what I mean. Enjoy reading loyal fans!_

* * *

The wind was picking up, whipping around the young teen as she battled through the streets. She was already drenched to the bone, the chill of rain rushing down her spine and soaking into every bit of her skin. Gaz pulled the coat around her tighter, trying to blot out the world with her mighty willpower. However, without her music player and headphones, the world seemed so terribly loud.

She could hear cars rushing around, wet tires ripping along the tarmac. Gaz was not going to let this deter her, despite her hatred for the world, she would soldier on and obey that annoying feeling inside her that said 'Find Zim and be with him' despite the illogical nature of the statement.

Why was she even listening? Why was she obeying this irritating voice calling out inside her? Zim's life was his own, if he had annoyed Dib than fine, surely it had nothing to do with her... even thought technically she was the very reason why it had happened. Okay, not really technically but even so.

Her eyes narrowed in thought. What was it about Zim that made her concerned for him? Perhaps it was the knowledge that he was very likely to do something very stupid after this.

Likely? On second thought, Zim was almost certainly going to do something very stupid after this, like go and blow up half the earth or declare war on the Empire or something... something that would get him killed if he wasn't careful.

Gaz again felt something bite inside her, something desperate. Without even noticing, she picked up her pace, blotting out the heavy rain that plastered her purple bangs to her face. She had to figure this out, she had to figure out why Zim had suddenly become so... vital to her.

She didn't care about friendships, she knew that, although Zim's friendship was rather... nice. She couldn't deny that she enjoyed their time together. Maybe friendship was just not the right word for what they had? Maybe it was something else...

Although she didn't want to think of it as being anything more than friendship, after all, if friendship was something that felt bizarre to Gaz, surely anything more than that was just impossible. Right? Right, she was certain of it.

Travelling through a storm and being drenched to the bone after punching your brother in the face was a perfectly normal reaction to hearing that someone you know has been told some very bad news.

... she was sure it was.

There was a sudden flash of lightning, one that seemed to appear right over her. She remembered something her father had told her, something about counting the seconds between each flash to see how far the lightning was.

She counted to one, then the very world seemed to shake from the thunder that rolled over her like a wave.

Gaz was beginning to think that perhaps this might not have been the best idea. She picked up her pace however, hoping that she didn't carry enough metal on her to draw lightning strikes onto her.

She had no idea what kept her going. She could turn back at any time, go back home, shout at Dib, play some games... but she didn't She kept going. Even though the thunder was right above her, the lightning so bright it cast sudden shadows on the ground, everything was fighting her, telling her to give up, go home.

... but she didn't. Nature could throw all it had at her, this could turn into a full on hurricane and she wouldn't stop. Everything was saying go home... but she would not fail Zim.

And for the life of her, for all that burning intensity inside, she had no idea why. Or better, perhaps she did and just refused to face it. Zim was her friend, her best friend, her only friend... and though many voices in her mind argued that not even best friend would do something as crazy as this. They argued that there was a much better word than 'friend' for someone who felt so strongly as to walk out into a storm just to make someone feel better.

But that little four letter word was not allowed in Gaz's world.

Zim on the other hand was doing something a little... different. Somewhere in his lab he emerged from a large, dangerous looking machine slowly. Smoke drifted from around him and his body was wrecked with aches and pains.

But he had done it.

He looked to his slowly, his vision blurring just a little. "Uuugh... Gir?" He looked around for his robot companion, hunched over and obviously exhausted, "Gir?"

Gir happened to just be sitting nearby playing with a chicken. Who looked rather perplexed as to why he was there. "MASTER! YOU LOOK YELLOW!"

Zim immediately frowned, looking to his own hand... which was clearly the green it had always been. "... right. But do I look any different any other way?"

"... nooo." Gir scratched his head slowly, his eyes squinting. "Do you have piggy ears?"

The irken growled again and suddenly stumbled to one side, grabbing onto the side of the huge, weird looking machine to steady himself. "The machine... weakened me... I think I'll go and watch some TV."

He began slowly making his way towards the elevator, hoping that his experiment worked. Gir didn't notice anything... but that hardly told him much. Gir woudn't notice if his own head was missing. Zim sighed, feeling his body hurt all over.

That experiment might have not been tested at all, but dammit, he was ZIM and he knew it would work whatever he did. After all, who was there to doubt his amazing genius? Certainly not the Tallest, whom he now began to realise had always doubted his genius, despite his many, many amazing accomplishments. After all, who else had managed to set fire to an entire planet before?

Nevermind it was Irk, that was unimportant.

He staggered out into his living room, groaning. It felt like he'd run a marathon and more, why did everything just ACHE so much? For the first time, he noticed the weather. He had been in his lab so long that the outside world had become just that, a world away from his own. The lab was his one slice of home and when he was in there, Earth just didn't matter anymore.

Earth was something he saw when he walked into his living room and any chance to forget about it with all it's ugly ape-people and Dib's was welcomed... though he didn't mind Gaz. She had been welcomed into his little private world after all.

He couldn't help but wonder where she was right now, probably at home playing her gamestation... alone. He had an overwhelming desire to show up, possibly in some overtly dramatic fashion and announce that he was going to beat her at her stupid earth games. After all, he'd never actually _played_ one of her games before.

Zim found a smile suddenly growing on his face. He'd like that...

"MASTER!" The house computer rudely broke him out of his wondering. "I have an incoming message."

"Wha? From who?" Zim blinked in shock and looked over to the very large TV screen which often doubled as a communicator.

The computer seemed to his ignore his command, or perhaps, just decided to link the call through directly, knowing that the caller was the only other person who ever contacted Zim directly.

"ZIM!" Dib's annoying voice cut through the room before his image even appeared on the screen. "ZIM WHERE IS MY SISTER?"

Zim just lay down on the couch onto his belly slowly, not even in the mood to look at Dib. Ugh, that big head of his just made him feel dizzy. "Dib beast. Zim is not feeling up to the MIGHTY task of dealing with your... you. So please go away." He held out a hand and made a little 'shoo' motion, still with his head against the couch arm rest.

"Zim you little green MORON." Dib seemed to be shaking the screen with his hands. "My sister just walked out into that storm just to go see if you're okay!"

Okay, THIS woke the alien up. He practically leapt up off the couch, even though his body was screaming for him not too. His red eyes bugged, his antennae standing on end. In his stomach he felt a horrible pit of sickness rising, above the aches that already raced across his body. "She's out there?"

"Yeah, she wanted to go see YOU of all people." Dib quickly growled out. "I dunno what kind of weird brainwashing you gave her but I swear I'll fly right over there in Tak's ship and- hey where are you going?"

Zim had hopped off the couch during Dib's rant. There was no question in his mind, he was not going to let Gaz drown in the rain outside. Dib may be fine letting his sister go out alone but Zim was not. "I'm going to rescue her."

"You can't do that!" Dib quickly shouted back, banging on the screen as if he'd somehow fall through it and stop the irken. "You're the bad guy!"

"THAT'S YOUR SIBLING-SPAWN!" Zim suddenly snapped, glaring and turning to Dib, his eyes flashing with rage. "DON'T YOU EVEN CARE?" The young human was taken back by this, even as Zim pointed to the screen, not noticing how his shirt now rode up slightly on his arm. "You sit there and scream insults at me while the one you CLAIM to be protecting walks through a LIGHTNING STORM!"

Dib had no answer, at that moment, he was astounded by both the shocking realisation that he'd let Gaz walk out and into danger and that, possibly for the first time ever, Zim had been right about something.

The boy spluttered something about shutting up before the transmission cut. Zim turned quickly and headed out the door. The rain hit him, cold and unyielding. Within seconds his clothes were drenched.

He was vaguely aware that he was walking out of his home without his disguise but that was a minor detail at best. His mind was made up, or perhaps something had made it for him, he had to go and rescue Gaz. The thought of her in trouble, in pain, caused a terrible weakness to rumble through his belly and yet, it forced determination into every other part of his being.

Zim couldn't explain it. He was walking out into a storm, the only thing standing between him and horrible acid burns was a day-old layer of paste. The paste never protected against the cold though, that horrible wet chill that soaked into his bones, or the wind that battered his tiny body.

He had thought that his new clothes might have protected him a little better but as he struggled on, he found that his shirt felt tight on his chest, his pants legs now only reaching to his ankles.

Nevermind the pain that was flowing over him. It was like having a headache that was all over you at once, stabbing at every joint, every bone. But he forced himself on, he was an irken soldier, he would not back down from this. He had to find Gaz, he had to make sure she was okay.

Because Gaz meant more to him than just someone to practice with, she was someone he wanted to impress, someone he liked being around, someone who he cared for. He had to smile as he battled through the elements. His body was ready to collapse at any moment from the cold, from the pain, from everything that had happened in his life.

But the thought of Gaz gave him determination and focus like he'd never known. Something to fight for, some_one_ to fight for and even nature, even this stinking, horrible, filthy, cold planet with it's ape-stink people, even his stupid painful body, even _Dib_, couldn't take that from him.

* * *

_LIKE THAT MY PRETTIES? Especially that INSANE ending I put there just to troll all of you? Yeah, Gaz and Zim out in the rain, and you know, you KNOW the next chapter is gonna be it. The big moment where their feelings come spilling out like crazy. _

_BUT NOT FOR ANOTHER TWO WEEKS. Yes, right here, right now I am making a promise. Back to regular updates, back to writing in motion, back to my focused strategy of putting out good work on a regular basis and earning the title I gave myself. _

_You guys are amazing, thanks for reading, reviewing and putting up with me._


	13. Flashes of Lightning

_YAY UPDATE. How long has it been since I last updated this? Oh I can't remember, which is probably a bad sign. Well, either way I know it was faster than the last one. I am back into a regular disciplined writing schedule now with hopefully regular every-2-week updates on this story. _

_This was a chapter I had planned for a long time, especially the ending, and I really hope it pays off for the long wait and the somewhat uneventful last two chapters. _

_Read and enjoy my friends!_

* * *

Zim was pretty lost at this point. He had been wandering through the storm for a while and at first he had known where he was going. Up the street, round the block, through the park and into Dib and Gaz's all too familiar neighbourhood. He had walked that path many a time.

However, the pain was getting to him. He had entered the park and soon become lost, the world turning into one swirling, muddy mess. Water was sweeping through his mild paste protection, his skin was burning all over, his eyes aching from the wind.

But Zim was determined to go out and find Gaz. She had to be safe, he had to show her he was still there for her despite all his stupid mistakes. He was mature, after all, he could do all the things that any mature person could do.

Right? Right. He was Zim, he was an irken soldier, job or not and he'd be damned if he was going to let some pathetic earth storm get the better of him.

Not when Gaz was out here anyway.

He finally managed to work his way under a tree, deciding that perhaps the tiny shelter from the rain might help. It did but only slightly, his body shivered as he collapsed into a curled heap with his back against the tree. As the pain ached over his whole body, his shirt and pants clung to his skin and his eyes closed tight. Slowly, as the wind howled around him and the cold of the mud set in, chilling each bone in his body to the core, doubt crawled into his mind.

Why was he doing this? What was so great about Gaz anyway? She was bossy and tall and HUMAN of all things. She couldn't feel this strange feeling back anyway, he even wondered if human kind could even feel such a powerful and compelling emotion. One that seemed to demand every one of his resources, every occupation of his mind

He wanted all this stupid pain to end, he wanted to go home and curl up on the couch and eat snacks and be lazy. He could just forget all of this and go home, dress in his old uniform and forget all about this strange infatuation and the bizarre lengths he'd gone to just keep Gaz around.

The wind and the rain seemed to die a little and Zim slowly looked up. Yes, to go home and be safe and secure in what he knew, in the familiar... wasn't that the best?

No.

His eyes closed once more as lighting lit his world, shining new light onto him before fading and the entire earth shaking under the roll of thunder like some great beast roaring.

But his mind was made up and backed by his iron stubbornness. To back down now would be to betray everything he'd done. He'd put in too much work, too much effort to just give up because of some minor setbacks like losing his job, angering Gaz or almost killing himself in a storm.

This felt... important, more important than anything he'd done before. This felt like something he HAD to overcome, as if he had never done anything better before in his life. This would prove his worth.

However, the pain across his body was too much. Through the wind he could smell burning, his own flesh, the clothes he were wearing were soaking into his skin. He couldn't stand anymore, his chest, arms, even his head as his wig clung dripped onto his face. He curled tighter, wishing something would come and save him.

Wishing Gaz would come and save him.

The rain battered Gaz like fists, thousands of them. They beat at her body, soaking her clothes, wearing her down, trying to drag her to the earth. But she fought on, even as the wind threatened to tear through her thin body, to throw her to the ground and push her into the dirty, wet pavement.

She would find Zim and she would comfort him. She would make sure he was okay before he did something stupid like stick his head into the engines of his spaceship.

He was not alone on this earth. Not anymore.

This storm would not beat her, she was better than this. She had weathered through worse... heh, weathered. She smirked as she strode on, slightly amazed that she had actually made a pun at a time like this.

She realised however that she needed shelter, somewhere to hide for just a moment before this wind truly took her off her feet. She was about halfway there, just going across the park which was really the separator between her and Zim's neighbourhoods.

Her boots became covered in mud and she trenched through the wet dirt, leaves and twigs hitting and sticking to her drenched coat. Her whole body seemed so drained and worn, but she knew that Zim would have it far worse.

His body would be burning though the rain, not to mention his spirit would certainly have been crushed by Dib. That idiot, she would have to give him another punch to the head after this.

She realised suddenly that she was panting and she had a cramp forming in her side. Walking through a storm would do that to a person. Looking around she saw a large oak tree, standing resolute and strong against the storm, and was drawn towards it, the offer of shelter from the rain much too tempting to pass up.

And yet as she got closer she saw a small, huddled shape against the tree. Her eyes widened as she recognised him and there was a sudden flood of relief and warmth through her. It was almost troubling, the happiness she felt to have found him but any worry for herself was drowned under her concern for Zim.

"ZIM!" She half-shouted over the wind. "Zim are you okay?"

The irken slowly looked up, half-lidded eyes blinking at Gaz, his angel in the black storm. "Gaz?"

His voice was hoarse, pained. She could already see wisps of smoke rising slowly from his body and the smell of a sort of light burning was around him. He was slowly being eaten by the acids in the rain... he was slowly dying, or he would if he stayed out here any longer. She could see it, his eyes seemed far away, even his smile seemed weakened. She'd never seen Zim like this before.

"Zim, you've got to get up, you've got to come with me or something." Gaz was panicking, especially as another roll of thunder was heard above them, lighting flashing and illuminating the world just as she touched his arm.

Zim winced as pain hit him, her touch hurt... but inside he felt warmer. "Gaz, I did something for you." He announced, trying to get to his feet. "You're wrong, I am mature."

The teenager had no idea what Zim was mumbling about as she gently helped him up. Maybe the pain of everything had driven him a little crazy or... more crazy, whichever made the most sense.

Zim stood, or tried to but fell forward onto Gaz, the strength to stand having been robbed from him. Gaz caught him before he fell, however as she straightened him up, she realised something. Zim wasn't standing at her chest, looking up at her.

_He was at her eye level_. Heck, he might have even been looking down at her!

Zim obviously saw the shock in her eyes and he grinned widely, ignoring the smoke rising from his body. "SUCCESS! SEE HOW I AM TALLER THAN YOU!" He backed up, staggering out from under the tree. "I am mature now!" He pointed to her, still grinning, rain falling off his body, pain searing through him but all of that pushed to one side in joy. "And it was all for you!"

Gaz was speechless, he had become taller... somehow, she didn't know how, but he'd done it. Suddenly her image of Zim changed, no longer being that small child, cackling away in a lab trying to blow things up. Here Zim stood, in jeans and a long sleeved top, tall and confident and willing to do things he'd never done before. She felt a strange rush of attraction towards him, so much so that even in the freezing cold Gaz felt a blush wash across her cheeks.

And yet she was horribly confused and conflicted. He'd done this... for her? "Why?" She asked out loud, her voice carried on the wind.

"... because!" Zim blinked. Perhaps because he was woozy with pain and the smell of his own burning skin was making him want to throw up or maybe it was the weird and sudden rush of feelings from looking at her, maybe both, but he couldn't stop his mouth from rushing with words. "Because I can't stop thinking about you! Because you drive me insane trying to make you think I'm worthy of your time and at the same time trying to prove I'm superior to you! Because I don't care about pleasing the Tallest as much as I care about pleasing you!"

Gaz didn't know how to think. All this information was just falling onto her, almost crushing her with it's emotional weight and yet she felt uplifted. Despite the howling wind, the frantic rain, despite everything, she felt a surge of... something inside her, like her belly and lungs were rushing through her.

Her heart entered her throat. She knew what this feeling was, she wasn't completely dumb, though she was sure that Zim had no idea what he was feeling.

So she decided to say it. Here in the rain, the freezing cold, she'd put a word to those feelings that were lighting her insides on fire. "Zim!" She shouted to him as she moved to hold out her hand. "I think I-"

Before her sentence could finish, there was a light. It was brighter than anything Gaz had seen in her life, like an explosion before her eyes. It was followed by a roar so loud it was deafening and for a split-second, Gaz was sure the world had exploded.

Then in the next moment it was gone, leaving only spots before her stinging eyes and the world ringing around her. She stumbled from her feet, landing onto her hands and knees in the mud. She could smell burning but not like the acrid, soft burning from Zim before. This was smoked and charred.

The smell of burned fleshed. She looked to where Zim had been standing and she was almost sick. He was lying on the floor, smoke rising from his body as his limbs twitched and jerked unnaturally.

Zim had been struck by lightning.

* * *

_GASP. ZIMMY. Yes he has been struck by frigging lightning! This really hasn't been the poor alien's day now has it? Well, he did almost get Gaz to say... something to him. What was it? Wait and find out! _

_I don't think there are any references to pop culture in this chapter, so instead I'll talk about the meaning of the lightning. Notice where the lightning strikes in this, it's always at an important point for both Zim and Gaz. It strikes when Zim overcomes his doubt, it strikes when Gaz touches Zim for the first time and it strikes when Gaz is about to say those mysterious words. Each time lightning plays a role as a sudden note of thought and change for the two, especially for Zim. _

_I wanted the storm to represent that time in every young person's life when they have to force themselves to realise they're not longer kids and before them are the crazy, harsh and troubling times of being a teenager. If they can fight through that storm without giving up hope, well, maybe they'll find someone to last the storm out with. _

_Thanks for reading and as always, gimmie some feedback, tell me what you liked and hated and I hope you'll be here for the next update!_


	14. Free Fall Through the Void

_I actually wrote this entire chapter within an hour... which may be why I friggin love it so much. The idea just kinda came to me. And to think, I was freaking out about what the lightning bolt would do to Zim. It's pretty crazy I know, but when you're THE KING, this stuff is natural baby. _

_Ooooh yeeeeah. Read on ma peeps!_

* * *

Zim couldn't seem to right himself, it was like he was trapped in a free fall through space but nothing he could do could stop it. Everything was black, he could see nothing but he could feel wind rushing past his face.

No wait, there was something, small tiny green lines flitting past him. Lines of code, he must be trapped within his PAK.

Somewhere in the background, somewhere far away, he could hear the echoes of voices. A girl, shouting? Screaming more like it. His name, over and over... then a roar, like a lion-beast, then silence.

Sweet, horrible silence.

Was he dead? No, if he was dead he would know it, he wouldn't be able to fall through his PAK matrix asking himself dumb questions and hearing voices. What was the last thing he remembered? Something about pain, lots of pain and his mind going into meltdown as his PAK screamed something about a massive overload.

Maybe he had system restored, maybe that's why he didn't know where he was. It would explain the lines of code now whizzing past him like rain.

He felt at peace though. Maybe this was what sleeping was like, yeah, that had to be it. He was sleeping for some reason. Humans seemed to do this a lot and he guessed lately he had gotten a little too human for his own good. He had after all made himself taller and he wanted to work on a more permanent solution to that rain problem.

He needed to change his attitude, get back to what he knew. He was an irken, an invader, his job was to conquer planets and present them to his Tallest. His Tallest who had taken away his invadership...

Well, what could he do if he couldn't invade things? Maybe he could try something else, something he liked doing. Like inventing things to blow other things up.

He remember something he liked doing, something to do with fighting but... not random people. A certain person, a special person, someone who made him feel welcomed here, on this horrible little planet. Someone who kept him interested in something other than destruction, someone who's opinion he actually cared for.

Someone who had met him with something other than outright hatred.

He felt so happy thinking about them, even though the name, the face, it wouldn't come to him. He really hoped that his PAK wasn't resetting itself, that would be horrible, it meant he'd forget everything he'd learned other than his basic personality and training.

He'd be just like he was when he first arrived.

Simple, clean, without all the horrible infections from the many people in this horrible world. Especially that stupid kid with the big head, oh how he hated him... well, he would have to re-learn to hate him after all. It shouldn't be too hard, everything he knew about him was based on anger and Zim was very good at anger.

There was something else... someone else though. Someone with... purple hair? He saw a small line of code suddenly fizzle away before him. No, it wasn't purple hair. Who had purple hair?

He began seeing other lines vanish around him. So this was a system restore, his PAK was deleting every bit of needless information to reboot itself from the original personality files.

Well that was nice to know, he supposed.

He'd never had a system restore before... he would have to relearn a lot of earth things. Another line fizzled. What was this planet called again?

Then suddenly something odd happened. The lines slowed down, his falling slowed down. Something was stopping his PAK and a voice was calling out to him again.

That girl's voice, echoing in his mind. Telling him to hold on, to fight back. Fight back what? He wasn't fighting anything, he was just falling peacefully through the matrix.

But her voice... it hit something. Not something in his head, something inside him, something in his heart, in his spoonch, in every part of his being. He felt a warm creep through him, fighting against the oh so pleasant numbness.

Suddenly he wanted to hold on. Suddenly being reset was a really, really horrible thing. There was something he didn't want to miss, something he had to remember. Something so desperate and important to him that nothing in the world should be taking it from him.

He saw a line of code beginning to fizzle out and he reached out a hand to grab it. He caught it, and a flash hit him like the light of a camera. A memory, about two years ago, a young boy and himself having a water balloon fight.

THAT GIRL! He saw her! The one with the purple hair and the dark clothes!

The thing inside him leapt up. He had to get more images! More memories! He had to save himself!

The girl's voice echoed through the void, shouting for him, cheering him on. Fight back!

He grabbed more and more, fizzling or not, each line of code was a memory storied inside his PAK, each one was a camera shot of an event that he knew he couldn't, that he shouldn't, ever forget.

There were things more important than his mission, than the Tallest, it was these memories, it was that girl.

The time he was turned into baloney, the time he got lost in the city, the time he fought the purple haired girl, the time he fought back the army of mutant bees, the time he went shopping with her. They all came flashing back to him.

But something was wrong, the lines of code were speeding up, vanishing faster. Faster than he could grab them. The process was accelerating, detecting his resistance. His PAK must be assuming that there was a virus in the system and was trying to delete as much as possible to save his original programming.

No, he wasn't a virus! This joy, this heat, this desire to be HIM was not a virus! He was ZIM! He was crazy and manic and he loved fighting and eating waffles and blowing things up and insulting the big headed kid and spending time with HER!

He had to find her name, he knew if he could, he would be able to break out of this system restore, he just knew it. Though he had nothing to base that theory on but it didn't matter, it was a thought to keep himself, his personality, from drifting silently away.

The shouting around him became more frantic, more panicked, it was fading in and out now, getting less and less each time. He was falling faster. What was the name of the street he lived on? The name of the skool he attended? The city he travelled through?

Her name, he had to find her name.

He saw a tiny flutter of a code and he grabbed it. DIB. Dib was the boys name! That annoying brat who hated him! But it wasn't HER name.

Zim could see thousands of lines, thousands of snapshots from a hundred years lifetime vanishing, fizzling away. He grabbed as many as he could, but they were all useless. Memories of himself bowing to the Tallest he knew were unimportant, worshipping the ground they walked on, listening to their every word.

They weren't what he wanted, what he needed.

Then he saw it, for a single moment. A line of code that fluttered just for a second through the many others.

He knew it was the one. Her name, her precious name.

Zim could feel the fall increasing, reaching it's apex. The wind was hitting him so hard he had to squint his eyes, the fizzles of deleted code almost obscuring his view. He could feel his body starting to seep with pain, why he didn't know, but it was aching all over.

His head ached terribly, like someone stabbing a knife through his temples over and over. The pain was almost splitting his head apart, causing his eyes and teeth to hurt just from being in the same space as his skull.

The screaming of the girl was fading but it was still there, still pushing him on. His head could have exploded but his heart beat so strongly it felt it would pierce his chest. It filled his body with warmth, with light, with a bright and burning fire that pushed him to do things he knew he couldn't do alone.

He had to get to that code, that line of code which seemed to be fraying slightly at the edges. No, no! NO!

His fingers reached out, claws just an eye's blink from the neon green code.

Everything went white.

Everything went numb.

"Zim? Zim?"

* * *

_Wanna know something weird? This was one of the shortest chapters. Oh yeah, it was long enough on page, but the word-count is actually UNDER the 1500 point limit! SHOCKING! But it works so well just as it is. _

_Anyways, the biggest obvious reference is THE MATRIX. _

_I don't think there are other references here, maybe there are though, tell me if you think there are any there! _

_I hope you enjoyed this strange, slightly trippy chapter! Tell me if you hated it! TELL ME! And thanks for reading!_


	15. Whose House Is This Anyway?

_FINALLY, an update here, and yes I know, regular updating. Well, turns out coursework season is still in full swing. Hell I'm supposed to be doing a 1000 word Creative Writing piece RIGHT NOW, but this was bugging me and I wanted it to be done. Besides, I KNOW most of you are feeling the same pressure. I swear, schools all over the world agree to make Christmas time into Coursework time just to bug us._

_So yeah, read and enjoy yo!_

* * *

Zim blinked his eyes open slowly, the world seemed fuzzy and strange around him. His head hurt an awful lot and there was an ongoing pulse along his spine stemming from his PAK. He tried to remember where he was, but found he couldn't. There was a weird kind of... jump in his memory, like watching a film with a big scene cut out the middle and hastily pasted back together.

It hurt way too much to think right now. Why didn't he bring any headache pills?

Well, wherever he was it was kind of comfortable. He was certainly lying in a bed, that was for sure. He got up slowly, forcing his body, which protested by aching like crazy, and taking a proper look around the room.

Rule one of being an invader, know your surroundings!

It took a moment of dazed, half-lidded looking about to realise it was a bedroom. He had been laying on a bed, hence why he was so comfortable. The room looked... weirdly familiar. Glowing little stars on the ceiling, paranormal stuff everywhere.

He knew... that he knew it. He knew he had been to this place before. But when? Why? Who did this room even belong too? It certainly wasn't his because he'd never decorate his room in this ugly blue colour.

A name was fighting through, Derp, durp... DIB.

Now everything came swinging back into his mind, memories smashing together like high speed cards, merging in a chaos of noise and images. His head pounded and a pained sound escaped his throat. He held his head in his hands, wishing the pain would get out of his skull.

Finally the pain subsided, though not completely. He knew however he could not stay in this room, otherwise Dib would be sure to come and try and cut him open or something horrible. That boy was sadistic like that.

He couldn't remember where this place though. He knew it was Dib's house, yes, but... where was Dib's house again? Ugh, this was going to drive him crazy. Well, still, he was an invader and invaders knew how to go about conquering their environments.

Zim went to move off the bed, but almost stumbled and not just from the pain his body felt. Was he... taller? He didn't remember this happening, since when was he this tall? Well, he liked it. He then noticed he was wearing a loose t-shirt and some lose fitting pyjama pants. They both had UFO's all over them.

He scowled, that was probably Dib's idea of a joke.

He suddenly noticed that his skin was... burned? He blinked in shock. It wasn't the easily healed acid burns like when he was caught out in the rain without coat of paste. This was burned like he'd been in an oven, though it was in patches all over him. They would take much longer to heal and this thought made him growl.

Okay, he knew he had lost his memory, or at least, large parts of it. At least he knew his name and his location... kind of. He could just call in Gir to come and get him and everything should be fine.

He went to open his PAK up and call for back up when a thought hit him. He was in Dib's house... in his room... he could really mess a bunch of stuff up here! Maybe even destroy some of his annoying computers!

Plus it would be kind of humiliating for him to go home and fill in his report to the Tallest while wearing his arch enemies pyjamas. Who knows what they might think?

Zim slowly and shakily moved towards the door of the room, hoping that he was still strong enough to fight back if Dib tried to jump him. Amazingly, his enemy wasn't there. In fact, by the sound of it, the home was empty.

He could hear cars hushing past outside and from somewhere deep under the house, the hum of massive machines working in Professor Membranes lab. Zim moved quietly, his instinct taking over, something that no amount of memory deletion could ever do.

Where would Dib take his clothes if he stole them? He would probably hide them in a place Zim would hate... like the washing machine.

The alien paled. This was going to be painful.

He began stepping slowly down the stairs, each step careful and cat-like, as if any moment he expected Dib to come jumping out behind him and try and take his guts out.

However, the house remained still. Zim didn't like things being still, it spooked him out. He was too used to the noise of his own home, which never seemed to have a peaceful moment. Zim knew he was just being paranoid but he considered it a well placed paranoia. He had obviously lost a lot of memory, ugh, which meant he'd have to probably spend a week trying to regain all those lost memories from a backup or something.

... if he had any. When did he last back up his PAK?

He froze at the bottom of the staircase, blinking. It had been... years since he'd backed up his PAK. It'd become such a bothersome thing, and Earth so far out of reach from the mass Control Brain Cloud that it was almost impossible to get a proper connection.

Zim pushed away that horrible pit in his stomach, he would worry about it later. Right now his main priority was getting out of here.

There was a sudden noise however from a room down a hall that Zim rarely went down. He blinked before looking around and throwing himself behind a couch, almost screaming in pain at the effort and at the feeling of his burnt skin hitting the floor, however, he bit down on his lip and managed to hold his pain in.

Zim could only watch under the couch as a door opened and began walking through the house. Those weren't Dib feet... he looked up at the top of the couch and saw a bob of purple hair moving along the top before walking to the stairs.

He crawled up onto the couch very slowly, wanting to get a better look at this strange thing moving through Dib's home. Something in his head tingled slowly, like... he knew her? There was certainly something about her that seemed so familiar and he couldn't place it.

Why couldn't he take his eyes from her? He was practically perched on the armchair of the couch now, watching her carry something upstairs.

Wait, he knew those colours... "Those are my clothes!"

The girl seemed to jump, clearly she had no idea the irken had been there. Her head turned and she looked to him with wide, yet cold, amber eyes which upon seeing Zim, flashed with something much warmer. "Zim!"

"Gaz!" The name seemed to come from somewhere other than his head, it came from somewhere deeper inside him. His head suddenly exploded in pain again as memories began smashing back into him, causing him to scream and fall back on the couch.

Gaz saw this and immediately began panicking and dropped the clothes to rush over to Zim. To say she was shocked was something of an understatement. What the heck was he doing downstairs? And furthermore, why had he been spying on her instead of saying something the moment she came into the room?

Zim's thrashing began to die down, leaving him in a sort of limp, groaning state. Gaz however only just now realised that as he had been in pain, she had grabbed his hand... tightly. She fought away an ashamed blush and let go, standing back a little to give him, and perhaps herself, a little breathing room.

"Are you alright?" She asked quickly, allowing an annoyed tone to enter her voice, "What are you doing out of bed?"

Zim didn't answer. There were... confused memories in his head. He remembered her as a child, that bratty, horrible little girl who would cause pain to anyone who ever looked at her the wrong way. He hadn't looked twice at her back then, but other memories were trying to but in. She had hurt him badly at one point, when Dib was ill, he was sure of that. But everything else from that point was... blank. He had flashes of her talking to him, something about clothes? It hurt his head to think about it.

All he could think about was the pain this girl had inflicted on him, even saying her name had caused him to collapse. By all rights he should hate her with everything he had.

And yet, he found himself so draw to her that her presence beside him was comforting to him. He knew she was connected with why he was here, why he was covered in burns and felt like he'd been hit with the Massive. But even so, he could not stop feeling this... strange connection to her, this odd achy feeling inside him where his heart would be. It was on fire and to look at her made him want to spend every second he had with her. He couldn't explain it, it was like nothing he had ever felt before yet he knew that this was not something he was feeling now. This was something that was there before he had lost his memory... he just wished he knew what to call it.

"Gaz." He said the name again, as if trying to make himself remember more, but it didn't happen. Instead he decided to get some questions out the way, at least before Dib got back from wherever he had gone. "What happened? Why am I here, tell Zim!"

"... don't you remember?" Gaz asked with a somewhat curious tone. "You were hit by lightning."

"Lightning?" Zim almost leapt up at that, but his body shouted at him, so he only managed to sit up and lean back on the couch. "No wonder I'm hurt... and my PAK..."

"It's your fault for walking out into the rain like that." Gaz continued to scold, not really knowing how to show sympathy having never shown sympathy before. "You shouldn't have come looking for me."

Zim blinked at this, putting a hand to his aching head. "I did what? When?"

"Don't you remember?" Gaz was starting to get worried now, Zim wasn't acting like himself. He seemed confused and almost weak, she was too used to seeing him be loud and annoying, but she was also rather unused to him being able to look her in the eye, even when sitting down. "I, erm, went out to see if you were okay," Saying it out loud like that made her realise what kind of action it was and what it would heavily imply to anyone listening in, "And you went out to find me in the storm, then we met under a tree and you were hit by lightning." She decided to skip over the bit about what she was about to say to say to him. That could be left for later when she didn't feel so silently humiliated for a moment of emotional weakness.

Zim nodded at this. He didn't think she was lying, he trusted her for a reason he couldn't explain. However, he still didn't recall any of this and he knew he never would. His memory of the event had been deleted, as had so many others.

"So... do you remember me? I mean, during these past couple of weeks?" Gaz had to ask, her curiosity was killing her. Besides, if he had forgotten, it could ruin all that she had done for him and all he'd done for himself.

Zim shook his head, and Gaz's heart fell. "Not a thing. Not since... we had a fight in school. Hey, have I gotten taller? I feel taller." He stood up and grinned. "Zim is TALL!"

Gaz however was not impressed, rather, she felt terrible. So all of that building, all the time together, it had been lost. Zim was more likely stupider now than he was before and his fascination with his tallness and how easily he seemed to be taking his memory loss.

The teenager got up stiffly and began storming out the room, refusing to even make a sound. He would not allow to make her to feel this way. He would not be allowed to utterly humiliate her.

"Where are you going?" Zim suddenly asked.

"To my room." Gaz replied as he began stomping up the stairs. "Don't bother following me!"

Zim looked on at this, blinking. He wanted to call out to her, to tell her his weird fiery feeling inside which only seem to intensify as she vanished from view. He wasn't foolish enough not to recognise this feeling. He was missing Gaz... and now he was even more confused.

This was clearly going to be a very long day.

* * *

_WOO, edited ending there because the original was terrible. BUT YES, what will happen to Gaz and Zim? Will Gaz ever just man up and tell Zim how she feels? Will Zim stop being an idiot and realise he actually feels something for someone? Where the heck is Dib? _

_All questions shall be answered next chapter, broskis. _

_Unfortunately no references this week, though 'Control Brain Cloud' is my little jab at Itunes cloud. It works so well, doesn't it? NOT WHEN YOU CAN'T GET A CONNECTION. _

_Anyways, hope you all liked this, review, tell me what you think, and I'll see you all next time! Also, next chapter will have DIBITON in it. Everyone likes Dibiton._


	16. Teenage Drama

_HI. HI GUYS. HI. HIIII. Sorry I vanished into thin air like that, I know, I know, but the thing is a lot fo big family issues came up. Gravestone-sized family issues. Not to mention I also proposed to my long time girlfriend-now-fiancée and everything so that happened. _

_Anyway, my plan for this has changed. I'm going to update this once a week and leave **Let Me Help You** to update later, mostly because I'm finding it hard to write and find the time to do so, so by focusing on just one at a time should help me get back to finishing these stories up. _

_Right, now that's out the way. TIME FOR SOME STORY. ENJOY._

* * *

Zim was looking through things in the kitchen. He was hungry and since the sky outside still looked rather dark and threatening he didn't feel like risking going outside through the possible rain to get home.

However, this was just a cover. In reality he didn't want to leave until he found out what was wrong with Gaz, why she was so mad at him.

Not that he would admit this of course.

And while this was bothering him he couldn't help but wonder what Dib was going to do. Dib could come home at any moment and find him here, scrabbling about in his kitchen trying to find something edible to eat. Even in all the years he'd been here, he had yet to really find a way to get used to the Earth food. Not that he couldn't digest it, no no, that was fine now, he just couldn't stand to eat the stuff. Human food was absolutely disgusting.

He blamed Dib for this. It was Dib's fault somehow, it always was. Him and his big stupid head with it's rubbish. Zim frowned at the very thought of him. If he'd hurt Gaz somehow...

Wait, why should Zim care if Dib-stink had hurt Gaz? It wasn't like Gaz meant anything to Zim.

And yet, the very thought made him feel sick, like he had not just a duty but a desire to care for Gaz. She was somehow important to him, to all of this, to the loss of his memory, his new height. She was now at the core of his life and yet it infuriated him because he couldn't remember WHY.

He had half a mind to storm up there and start demanding answers and honestly he was pretty close to doing so. After all, he usually found that he got what he wanted when he went about demanding things of other people.

But something inside him, a very male sense, told him to leave the female alone for a while until she wasn't so full of rage. That and this was Gaz, if he annoyed her she was likely to remove his head from his shoulders without a second thought.

Zim decided it wasn't worth looking for food here and decided to just boil some water and maybe make something he could drink. Dib foolishly believed that all water hurt the irken, this was wrong. It was the acids that the humans pumped into the atmosphere that hurt him, not the water itself. If he boiled and purified it, it became drinkable.

Although the moment he turned on the tap, a voice suddenly barked across the kitchen. "ZIM! Quit stealing my water!"

The alien turned his head to see Dib standing there at the opening of the kitchen, pointing a finger threateningly. He dropped the carrier bag he'd been holding and darted forward to try and tackle the alien from the sink, however, Zim simply stepped back and allowed his nemesis to go flying onto the floor.

"Heh, that was pretty funny." Zim added as he grinned down at a now groaning Dib.

Dib picked himself up quickly, obviously he was used to being thrown around, and went to shout at Zim summore. However he stopped and blinked in surprise. Zim acted the same, after all, now they were actually on the same eye level.

It was kind of bizarre, to go from one day being a good head size smaller than someone to standing nose-to-nose.

Zim recovered first and growled, remembering Gaz suddenly and deciding to take his inner confusion and anger out on Dib. He shoved him hard, inside marvelling at his ability to do so, and loudly demanded, "What have you done to Gaz?"

"What have I done?" Dib responded quickly. "What did you do? You were the one who seemed to have made her go crazy!"

"I didn't do anything, and even if I did know I obviously don't know now because I forgot everything!" Zim shouted back, his voice filled with the confusion he felt inside.

Dib scratched his head at this. "... wait, that doesn't make sense." he shook his head and decided to move on. "Look, whatever, all I know is that when I got sick you two started hanging out all the time. I think she, well, I think she really likes you."

At this, the human shuddered while Zim raised an antennae slowly. "She likes me?"

"Yeah, like, like-likes you." Dib stuck his tongue out at this. "Ugh, I hate that stupid phrase."

"I have no idea what any of this means, stupid Dib-monkey." Zim shook a fist at his enemy. "Explain to Zim!"

Dib seemed rather lost at this point, that or perhaps he just hated the idea of explaining human affection to an alien monster whom he despised. He groaned in annoyance before trudging over to a chair and drawing it out, sitting at his kitchen table. "Alright Zim, sit down, I'm going to explain this once so listen up."

Zim seriously doubted that Dib could ever explain anything just once. The boy could talk for years if left to it.

"Alright... well, while you and Gaz hung out she obviously grew close to you, I dunno how, but you've bonded over something and now she cares about you, though I've no idea if you care about her." Dib shot a sharp look to the alien. "Do you care for her?"

This question was more loaded than Dib probably realised. He wanted to answer, but found that only his mouth opened and no sound came out. Gaz meant... something to him, something deep and ingrained in his body that he couldn't remove. Something he didn't want to remove.

He'd never felt like this about anyone, even his Tallest. He decided to just wipe his mind and see what came out.

"I care for her." The words didn't so much come out of his mouth as they did go running out.

Dib seemed shocked by this, however, he looked to one side in thought. "Yeah... I know you do... no one goes risking their lives like you did without feeling something."

"I risked my life for her? How?" Zim quickly asked back, eager to find out anything that happened in the large blank space in his mind.

"Oh, erm," Dib looked to one side and tapped two fingers together nervously, "Well, she got mad at and went to visit you to make sure you were okay."

Zim cocked his head slightly. "Why would she do that?"

"Not important." The human quickly hand-waved the question. "Thing is that we had a really bad storm and she went out in it, I called you and told you about it and you went out to go find her and keep her safe."

Now THIS was amazing, at least to Zim. He had never gone out of his way to help anyone do anything... ever! And yet he'd walked out into a storm, one of the top five things he hated most about earth, just to make sure Gaz was okay? That was... wow. However, the moment he thought about it, the moment he knew he'd do it again for Gaz if it was needed.

Yes, he really did like her...

"And now she's mad that you don't remember any of it." Dib finished with a shrug. "I guess she feels like she's lost you as a friend, or more." He paused, as if weighing something on his mind before looking to the table. "I... should probably help you two make up over this."

"I thought humans were highly protective of their fellow meat-spawn." Zim replied with a hiss. "Besides, why would you ever help me?"

"Believe me, Zim, I owe you one. And the faster I pay it off the faster I can stop feeling like you'd use it to make me do something horrible." The boy replied as he hopped off the chair. "Is there any way we can give you your memories back?"

"Only through another system restore, and I might lose more memories in the process." Zim replied quickly. "Also if you think I'm letting your grubby human hands on my PAK-"

"Right, right." Dib again hand waved Zim's statement away. "Gotcha. That window is out..." The boy leaned onto the kitchen counter, thinking slowly, one hand tapping on his chin. He then began to whisper to himself, "No PAK meddling... no records of observation..." He suddenly clicked his fingers. "Got it! You just need to show Gaz that you still care for her, memories or not!"

"Ah ha!" Zim replied with a matching grin. "For once, and only once, Dib-creature, I agree with that statement." There was a long and awkward pause before Zim slowly asked. "... how do you do that?"

"I dunno, you were the one who spent loads of time with her!" Dib quickly replied.

"You're her brood-spawn! You should know!" Zim instantly barked back.

"Hey I wasn't the one who got all touchy-feely with her than got stupidly struck by lightning!" The young man responded with a poke to the chest.

"Well I'm not some big headed mud-beast!" The alien responded with an equally tough poke to the chest.

"WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP DOWN THERE!" The sound of an angry Gaz shook the home and caused both the boys to cower.

Dib gulped quietly then turned to Zim. "Lets plan this in the lab."

* * *

_Rubbishy ending, but don't worry, this fic is getting written and the next chapter should be more fun. It's really quite touching and I think a rather fitting end to the story. So is the next chapter the last one? Very likely. _

_Anyway, references!I can't remember if any are in there. If there are, YOU TELL ME. MWAHAHA. _

_Right, laters kiddos!_


	17. Oblivious Romance

_BLUH. I don't even wanna talk about why this is so late, a mixture of being overwhelmed, creative block, other things distracting me and good old fashioned forgetfulness. _

_So yeah, sorry guys. Anyway, just go right in and enjoy!_

* * *

Gaz paced about her room wishing she had the strength to go down and shout at Zim until he understood why she was so mad at him. Though she knew she couldn't be mad at him, it wasn't like he purposely lost his memory.

She was mad because it was out of her hands. It wasn't something she could control and reverse. She couldn't beat him up and expect his memories to return.

Inside she felt truly crushed, because she knew that bond, that close friendship and intimacy she had found with Zim was lost. She had put forth effort to reach out and really try this time to allow someone into her inner circle. To see her nicer side rather than the black veil of gothic aloofness and anger she usually projected onto the world.

And her efforts were wasted.

Gaz repeated to herself in her head. She should have never bothered. It was a waste of time and effort. She couldn't have friends, even when they had been on the brink of something a little more...

No, she was kidding herself about that too. Zim wouldn't say that, why would he? He was just her friend, nothing more.

He couldn't feel something so deep... no matter how far Gaz believed he could have done in those last moments.

She collapsed onto her bed and curled up, wishing she had something that she could do to get this feeling from her. Why couldn't she do what Zim did and somehow just delete the memories from her brain? But really, would she want too? Downstairs was an alien she had grown so fond of that she dare not put a name to it.

And every memory that she had spent with him hurt her, and yet, she held each one dearly.

It was so conflicting, so confusing, was the world really so mad? She would have prefared to stay ignorant to people if this is what life was really like. How could people go about day to day feeling this way about people? This weird pain-joy that she felt inside? How could she be happy Zim was even alive when it wasn't the Zim that she had come to know?

"Zim... what am I going to do..." Gaz spoke softly to the room around her.

A sudden grumbling from her stomach drew her attention. She realised she essentially hadn't eaten all day, however, she was somewhat unsure about going downstairs. She didn't want Zim to be there, bugging her, annoying the hell out of her with questions.

Assuming Zim was even still here. It could just be Dib doing... stupid Dib things.

It was all his fault that this happened. If he hadn't got all crazy about Zim being with her than he would have never have caused Zim to lose his job. She would have to make sure to punish him later, karmic justice had to be served.

Another grumble forced her hand and slowly she got up. If it was Zim than she would just have to ignore him, if it was Dib, she could throw things at him until he went away. Yes, that plan worked perfectly.

When she got to the kitchen however there was no one, which was a major relief. She could make herself a sandwich in peace.

Or maybe she could just get some dekolta bars. Whichever was easiest to be honest.

It was at this point, as she was munching on her dekolta bar that she took from Dib's stash in the fridge, that she heard voices coming from the slightly opened door to the lab. It seemed that the lock had flicked on before the door was shut.

Immediately the goth's interest was peeked and she moved quietly towards it, listening in as the sound of male voices reached her ears.

"Zim does not understand this. Why do females enjoy flowers?"

"I dunno, they just do!"

Dib and Zim, talking about flowers? Gaz didn't know if she should burst out laughing or check to see if she wasn't dreaming. After all that had happened lately, she couldn't be sure if anything was actually real anymore.

"Look, just, get her something, make it up to her!"

"Zim has nothing to make up. I got hit by lightning! She should buy me flowers!"

Gaz almost smirked, almost, this was rather hilarious. So her brother thought that he was some kind of lady killer and was trying to pass on his knowledge of woman on to a rather unsympathetic alien. She sat down beside the door and continued to listen, eager to hear just how Zim planned to win her back.

Inside she honestly hoped that he would... though she had low hopes for it. Zim had returned to his oblivious, idiotic self, there was no getting the nicer, more mature side of him back.

"No, just, okay, forget the flowers, let's think of something else." She didn't need to see him, she practically knew Dib was pinching the top of his nose and sighing in exasperation. She did the same when first training Zim. "Look, Gaz isn't just some girl, you need to do something that she'll like."

"She likes fighting." Zim suddenly announced out of the blue, causing Gaz's eyes to widen just a little in surprise. "Maybe I should fight her."

Zim remembered that? How... odd. No, he must have known she liked to fight beforehand. It was obvious she liked fighting, she was a tomboy after all.

"Nooo, I doubt that will work." Dib replied slowly, shooting down the little bits of surprise Gaz had for Zim's memory. Dib was such a hypocrite, he loved fighting with Zim just as much as she did.

"Her favourite band is Dethklok, maybe I should kidnap them and force them to play for her!" Again Gaz's eyes grew open. How did he know that? No, it was obvious, again, totally obvious.

Dib seemed to pause, whether from a shared shock at Zim's knowledge or otherwise Gaz would never know. "... lets put that on the maybe pile. What else do we know she might like?"

Zim seemed to growl deeply. "She likes the colour purple and hates beige, she likes deep dish pepperoni pizza without cheesy crusts, she likes platformer and first person shooter video games."

Gaz had to put a hand over her mouth to stop her gasp from being heard. Zim... he remembered... all of that. How? He had lost every bit of his memory from the day Dib was ill, so how could he possibly know that?

Thankfully she didn't have to ask, Dib was on hand to do it for her. "What the- how could you know that? I thought you lost your memory?"

"I did!" Zim's voice seemed to rise in annoyance. "But I... I just know these things! I just know her, it's all in here."

Gaz wished she could see what he was pointing too.

"It's all there when I think about her."

There was a strange kind of pause and Gaz almost opened the door a little further to see what was happening.

"Maybe you should just tell her all that." Dib's answer broke the silence like a brick through a window. His statement had a similar effect, as she heard Zim hesitate suddenly.

Gaz was sitting, waiting for his answer, she wanted to hear all that from him. She wanted to look him in the eye and admit all of that to her face, as so far she had only heard him speak the words, she had not watched him do so. Strange how much power a door could hold between two people.

"I... you're trying to trick me." The irken suddenly accused. "Human females hate talking about their feelings."

Dib seemed to be utterly slack-jawed at this. "You're... wow. Wow. Wow Zim. Wow."

"What?"

"You're an idiot."

"You smell bad!"

"Whatever, look." Dib seemed to sit on something as Gaz heard a creaking noise. "Gaz liked you because of who you were. Clearly either by hidden memory or... maybe some instinctual learned thing, you still have that inside you. All you have to do is just go on what you feel like you should do."

Gaz had to admit, for Dib, that was some pretty impressive advice. Be yourself... though with Zim it seemed more like 'be the person you used to be only a month ago'. Since any Zim older than that was an insufferable moron who screamed too much.

She got up silently, wanting to hear no more of what these two were planning. It would probably be something stupid anyway, she would either get a cheep laugh out of it or just demand that Zim grow up and stop going with the cheesy approach.

However, before she could actually get away, she heard Zim storming towards the door. "Your advice is stupid, Dib-stink, Gaz will only appreciate the grandest of gestures and- GAZ!"

The girl hadn't been given enough time to get away from the door, listening to Zim prattle on she had forgotten that his legs were considerably longer than they used to be. The irken stood before her, his red eyes wide as he realised what she'd been doing.

"How long have you been there?" He quickly demanded.

"Long enough." Gaz replied quickly, internally wincing at the very cheesiness of the statement.

"... I'm going to just... you know... get out of your way." Dib announced awkwardly as he began trying to sneak away, however, there was only one way out of the lab and Zim and Gaz happened to be standing there.

Of course neither of them were moving, so the poor boy eventually settled for just sitting in the furthest corner of the room he could and going on one of his father's tablets. He also looked very irritated that he couldn't escape the incoming teenage drama.

Zim scoffed at Dib before looking back to Gaz, knowing that she was far too stubborn to find somewhere more private to do this. That was fine because Zim was equally as stubborn. "So you spy on Zim's conversations now?"

"I couldn't help it, you are so loud the neighbours could hear." Gaz snapped back, eyes locking with her. Cool amber burned against that deep fire red.

They each seemed to be waiting for the other, each knowing this had to be done. Neither however wanted to start, they guarded their feelings so tightly, their pride held far higher than anything else. Dib casually realised that as much as he hated the idea of his sister making out with an alien psycho, they were an equal match.

Kind of like two volatile chemicals that cancelled each other out when mixed together.

"So." Gaz finally started. "You wanted to talk to me?"

* * *

_WOO, so yeah, tis all good again and hopefully I'll get the next chapter to you faster. _

_Anyway, this chapter was somewhat interesting to write. Gaz overhearing on Zim and Dib was fun, especially towards the end part. Zim just opening up like that was interesting, but of course Gaz wants him to say it to her face. _

_References!_

_Dekolta bars - Team Fortress 2. SANDVICH IS BETTER._

_Dethklok - self explanatory people.  
_

_So yeah, review, I'll reply. Tell me how you liked it, if you're willing to stab me yet, all that good stuff. Last chapter should be the next! LATERS!_


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